With a long streak of warm weather this month, you might be wondering if this June has been a hotter than usual. A new report by the New York Times found that the early summer temperature rise can be attributed to a combination of heat-trapping gas emissions from human activities and the reoccurrence of El Nino, a natural climate pattern.
These dual influences are causing significant changes around the world such as severe heat, droughts, wildfires, and hurricanes. Not only has the combination of the two increased the risk for these natural disasters but they are complicating preparedness by making hurricane forecasts harder.
Another natural factor that has caused the world to become hotter is a volcanic eruption in Tonga in January 2022, which blasted more than 55 million tons of vaporized seawater into the air, considered a greenhouse gas.
While some continuing factors to the unusually warm weather are natural, warming caused by human activities is a long-term trend. “We are still moving in a pretty alarming direction overall when it comes to warming,” said Dr. Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California for The New York Times. “There still hasn’t been a great deal of momentum away from that.”
by Leanne Auyeung