If you were melting on Tuesday, we now know the reason for that is because July 4 was reportedly the Earth’s hottest day on record.
The U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction took data from 1979 onward and discovered that the average worldwide temperature on Tuesday hit 62.92 degrees Fahrenheit, according to The Hill.
CBS News reported that the record is still awaiting other measurements to be corroborated with the data gathered from July 4 but the new record “could itself soon be broken as the Northern Hemisphere’s summer unfolds.”
Why is this important? The hottest day ever recorded previously to July 4 was the day before, on July 3, according to Rolling Stone.
USA Today reported that temperature was recorded by a tool that uses “satellite data and computer simulations,” called the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer.
Tuesday’s temperature was reportedly the highest temperature for the data set in the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer since recordings started in 1979.
The Associated Press reported that, while the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration has not officially recorded these temperatures, “this is showing us an indication of where we are right now,” NOAA chief scientist Sarah Kapnick said.
Context: A climate scientist based in Anchorage, Alaska, Brian Brettschneider, wrote on Twitter that Earth had experienced its “warmest June on record.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that despite heat-related deaths and illnesses being preventable, “around 618 people in the United States are killed by extreme heat every year.”
At least 13 people have reportedly “died from heat-related illness in Texas so far this summer,” according to ABC News.
What are people saying about the heat? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Chair Hoesung Lee reportedly told journalists, “This report offers hope, and it provides a warning.”
Lee continued, “The choices we make now and in the next few years will reverberate around the world for hundreds, even thousands, of years.”