As someone who was born and raised in Seville, you could say that I have a master’s degree in a topic that is on everyone’s lips right now: heat (or “la caló” as we call it). Since I can remember, summer has been a rather distressing time for me and all my loved ones, as we had to rely on swimming pools, fans, or simply leaving the province to cope with the high temperatures. But as you may already know, the heat of recent years is far from normal.
Climate change is causing, among many other things, increasingly extreme temperatures on the planet, to the point that this past Monday, July 3rd, was the hottest day on Earth since temperature records began. As reported by Science Alert, the Earth recorded an average temperature of 17 degrees Celsius.
The measurement, conducted by an organization affiliated with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States, registered that the average air temperature at the planet’s surface was precisely 17.01 °C, surpassing the previous record of 16.92 °C set just last July.
According to the data collected to date, the average air temperature worldwide varies from 12°C to less than 17°C on any given day of the year. While the months of July and August mark the highest temperatures, with an average of 16.2°C in early July between the years 1979 and 2000, it is the first time that the 17°C mark has been surpassed on average.
Now, this record will need to be corroborated by other organizations dedicated to measuring temperature, which will have to certify whether this year is hotter than 2022. We can only wonder: is this the hottest day of the year, or is an even more suffocating day still to come? If there is any all-powerful being listening, please have mercy on our sweltering souls.
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