Climate Watch: Are We Having Record Heat?
The summer of 2023 is cooler than usual, as the graph shows. For perspective, Phoenix had 18 consecutive days of 110° temperatures in 1974, and Death Valley hit 134° in 1934. The six hottest July 19ths in the U.S. occurred in 1934, 1932, 1936, 1930, 1926 and 1901—when almost half of the US was over 95 °F (35 °C). Atmospheric CO2 levels were much lower then. Every day, a new heat record is being set somewhere. If you have temperature stations at 10,000 locations and they have an average length of 100 years, then during a 100-day-long summer, you would expect to get about 10,000 daily maximum te...