In the 1800s, pioneering scientists foresaw how carbon in the air could warm Earth. By 1938, English engineer Guy Callendar had linked rising atmospheric carbon dioxide to global warming.
Now in 2024 — with atmospheric CO2 at its highest levels in at least 800,000 years — NASA found July 22 was the hottest day observed in the modern satellite record. With the use of spacecraft and modern instrumentation, NASA can run a relatively quick analysis of global temperatures. This scorching day (amid a scorching two weeks) demonstrates a “long-term warming trend driven by human activities, primarily the emission of greenhouse gases,” NASA said in a statement.
“In a year that has been the hottest on record to date, these past two weeks have been particularly brutal,” the space agency’s administrator Bill Nelson said, noting the agency uses over two dozen Earth-observing satellites to collect climate data.
“Oppressive heat” recently blanketed the Western U.S. and Northern Plains, for example, helping boost global average temperatures to over 17 C (around 63 degrees Fahrenheit), which of course includes frigid realms like Antarctica. Summer heat waves are indeed normal, but a warmer climate boosts the odds of severe, persistent, and record-breaking temperatures.
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