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Heat Waves Bring Troubling Summer Data


NASA tracks global summer conditions such as surface heat and fires. This summer’s heat waves broke records across the planet. Here’s a taste of what NASA was monitoring:

Icon design ©The Earth & I
Icon design. ©The Earth & I
  • Hurricanes are affected by rising temperatures. In the Atlantic, five named storms formed between May 19 and July 9, with Hurricane Elsa becoming the earliest fifth-named storm on record for a single hurricane season.

  • More than 62,000 hectares (239 square miles) have burned in Algeria this year.

  • In one of the worst heat waves since the 1980s, more than 110,000 hectares (424 square miles) have burned in Greece this year.

  • The massive wildfires in the Republic of Sakha in eastern Russia this year have set a record for estimated carbon emissions for the period from June 1 to August 1.

  • As of August 6, 2021, the Dixie fire in California had charred more than 432,000 acres.

  • More than 136,000 hectares (525 square miles) have burned in Turkey this year, nearly three times the annual average.

  • At the opening of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, held this year in Japan, Tokyo was in the midst of a humid heat wave that pushed temperatures above 34°C (93°F) several days in a row.

  • On May 14, 2021, winter ice still covered most of Canada’s Lake Winnipeg. By May 19, temperatures hovered between 30°C and 33°C (86°F to 91°F), and the dry landscape was covered with smoke and fire.

 

Source: NASA

Information in this article was derived from NASA’s Earth Observatory: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/topic/heat


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