Top NASA expert: July 2023 will surpass 100-year heat record
During a meeting at NASA's Washington headquarters, the director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies delivered a sombre message.
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| As the Oak Fire burns close to Fontana, California, a fireman from San Bernardino County wipes his forehead. |
According to leading NASA meteorologist Gavin Schmidt, July 2023 is expected to be the hottest month in "hundreds, if not thousands, of years."
The alarming warning comes as the world is being relentlessly engulfed by a heatwave, heightening worries about the escalating climate disaster.
During a meeting at NASA's Washington headquarters, Gavin Schmidt, the director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, delivered a sobering warning. He said that the recent heatwave, which is primarily hitting large portions of the US South, may make July 2023 the hottest month on record for the whole planet.
The heatwaves we're seeing in the US, Europe, and China, according to Schmidt, are shattering records left, right, and centre. "We are seeing unprecedented changes all over the world," he claimed.
The European Union and the University of Maine both announced that daily temperature records had already been broken as a result of the record-breaking heat. A heatwave-related crisis that has caused fatal floods to ravage New England, smoke from Canadian wildfires to choke US cities, and heat advisories for tens of millions of people has made the situation worse.
At the summit, scientists and other professionals made a strong connection between these extreme weather occurrences and greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans. NASA's chief scientist and senior climate advisor Kate Calvin emphasised that "what we know from science is that human activity and principally greenhouse gas emissions are unavoidably causing the warming that we're seeing on our planet."
According to NASA's forecasts for 2023, this year may set a new record for being the hottest year ever observed. Other estimates put the chances of breaking that record as high as 80%, compared to Schmidt's estimations of a 50% chance.
Additionally, Schmidt predicted that 2024 may be considerably hotter than 2023. A rise in Earth's temperature is anticipated to result from the impending El Nio weather pattern, which is infamous for raising global temperatures and is predicted to peak around the end of this year.
NASA has developed a number of climate-focused programmes in response to the worsening climate crisis to help mitigate its impacts and get ready for new challenges. One of these is the Earth Information Centre, which offers instant access to climatic data from NASA's 25 satellites.
Administrators and scientists from NASA also emphasised the need of enabling people and world leaders to make educated decisions about addressing climate change by making scientific knowledge available to the general public.
Funding reductions for climate-related initiatives, including those at NASA, have raised worries, though. The organisation is still committed to hastening scientific progress and utilising research for climate readiness.
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