For the third fourth day in a row, earth has reached its hottest day ever recorded as regions globally experience dangerous heat.
Our planet has warmed to the highest temperature ever recorded by human-made instruments when the average global temperature reached 17.18 degrees Celsius, or 62.92 degrees Fahrenheit, on Tuesday, as millions of Americans celebrated the Fourth of July, data from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction shows.
The record was first set on Monday, when average global temperatures measured at 16.2 degrees Celsius, or 61.16 degrees Fahrenheit, but it only took one day to surpass that temperature.
Wednesday the record was tied as global temperatures again reached 17.18 degrees Celsius, according to the NCEP.
"The heat blanketing much of Earth has been driven by El Niño in combination with the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming, researchers say." - ABC News
Even hotter temperatures may be caused over the next six weeks by greenhouse gases and El Nino, tweeted Robert Rohde, a physicist and lead scientist at Berkeley Earth, a non-profit environmental data analysis group.
Tuesday's temperatures likely represent the record for long before global temperatures began to be recorded in 1979.
"Global warming is leading us into an unfamiliar world," Rhode tweeted.
The southern U.S is facing a weeks-long heat wave with dangerous temperatures, as well as intense heat domes occurring elsewhere in the world in places like China and North Africa.
July and August could be even hotter as El Niño continues to strengthen, Brian Brettschneider, a climate scientist based in Anchorage, Alaska, wrote on Twitter.
Heat is the number-one weather-related killer in the world, with more than 600 people dying from heat-related illnesses every year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Updated 4/7/28
“For four days in a row, the planet reached its hottest day ever recorded as regions all over the world endure dangerous heat.” ABC News