Earth keeps breaking global heat records

Earth now is hotter than it’s been astatine immoderate clip successful recorded history.

Average world temperatures shattered records connected 2 consecutive days past week, reaching 17.09° Celsius connected July 21 and past inching up still much nan adjacent day, to 17.15° C, aliases astir 63° Fahrenheit. That’s almost an full grade Celsius hotter than nan planet’s mean somesthesia of 16.25° C for each July 22 from 1990 to 2020.

Those caller power records travel amid 13 months successful a statement of record-breaking temperatures connected Earth — not conscionable complete land, but successful nan oceans too (SN: 4/29/24). Before 2023, nan grounds highest somesthesia was 16.8 °C, group successful August 2016. Since mid-2023, nan satellite has surgery that 2016 period 58 times.

It makes you wonder: Just really basking could Earth get? Is location a theoretical highest world mean temperature? Well, we wondered that.

And truthful Science News has launched a task to regularly statement Earth’s ambiance extremes — and reply your questions astir really to navigate our changing planet.

First up, utmost heat.  

Theoretically, it could get a lot hotter. Right aft Earth formed astir 4.6 cardinal years ago, nan satellite was still molten rock, pinch aboveground temperatures possibly 1900° C.

Earth’s somesthesia during nan Neoproterozoic Era, betwixt astir 800 cardinal and 600 cardinal years ago, careened betwixt frigid and boiling, pinch the mean planetary somesthesia possibly reaching arsenic precocious arsenic 32° C. There person been akin conscionable arsenic basking aliases astir arsenic basking episodes successful Earth’s history: 250 cardinal years ago, erstwhile Earth had 1 monolithic continent called Pangaea; astir 92 cardinal years ago, during nan Cretaceous Hothouse; astir 55 cardinal years ago, during nan Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (SN: 1/11/17; SN: 10/4/06; SN: 5/7/15).

All of those times were mostly ice-free connected Earth, pinch precocious oversea levels and forested polar regions. Not precisely perfect for humans.

Since preindustrial times — earlier astir 1850 — Earth’s mean aboveground somesthesia has accrued by astir 1.1 degrees C. The planet, connected average, is now arsenic lukewarm arsenic it was 125,000 years ago, astatine nan highest of nan past interglacial period, researchers say, based connected information gleaned from crystal and sediment cores. Back then, nan oversea level was besides overmuch higher — astatine slightest 7 meters higher than today.  

As for nan future, a batch depends connected ongoing greenhouse state emissions, of course. Under precocious emissions scenarios, immoderate ambiance simulations pushed each nan measurement retired to 2500 propose that nan world’s mean somesthesia could beryllium 5 degrees C hotter than presently — but successful immoderate places, including successful nan Arctic, those temperatures could beryllium arsenic overmuch arsenic 8 degrees C higher than coming (SN: 11/19/21).

OK, your turn. Bring it on. What are immoderate of your burning questions astir Earth’s utmost heat? We’ll do our champion to answer. Send america your questions here, and we’ll spot you adjacent week.