El Niño effect: global temperature breaks record for the second consecutive day

Tuesday was the warmest day on record and this week global average temperatures broke a record for the second day in a row, according to preliminary data released Wednesday by the US Weather Observatory.

The average global temperature on the surface of the planet set a record of 17.18 degrees Celsius (62.92 Fahrenheit) on Tuesday, July 4, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported on Wednesday.

The new record surpassed the previous one of 17.01 Celsius (62.62 Fahrenheit) registered last Monday, the agency said, a few days into the beginning of summer in the northern hemisphere. These records break the previous record of 16.92°C set on July 24, 2022, based on NOAA collections that began in 1979.

The combination of an early El Niño and climate change has led to warnings from scientists who have predicted this to be one of the hottest years on record.

In early June NOAA had signaled the onset of El Niño, a weather phenomenon linked to rising temperatures in the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean.

According to NOAA, the El Niño effect could cause a rainy summer in the southern United States and along the Gulf of Mexico coast.

Robert Rohde, of Berkeley Earth at the University of California, indicated in a Twitter message that “this combination could well bring even hotter days in the next six weeks”.

The National Weather Service (NWS) forecasts for this Wednesday temperatures of more than 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) in Las Vegas (Nevada), El Paso (Texas) and Albuquerque (New Mexico), which could reach 43.3 Celsius (110 Fahrenheit) in Phoenix, Arizona.

Likewise, temperatures between 33 and 37 Celsius (90-100 Fahrenheit) are expected in San Antonio and Dallas (Texas), Jacksonville and Tampa (Florida), Oklahoma City (Oklahoma), Memphis (Tennessee), New Orleans, (Louisiana), and Washington DC.

With information from EFE and AFP