On July 1, a small community outside of Toronto broke a daily weather record almost as old as Canada itself. At 33.9 Celsius (93 Fahrenheit), the temperature in the town of Kincardine topped its previous record high of 33.3 Celsius, established in 1867.
That was just one of the many heat records broken across the Northern hemisphere this July. At least six daily highs established before the 20th century were broken in the United States, and California’s Death Valley struggled through the hottest month, globally, ever measured. In many places, the heat has been deadly.
This year, Finland, Japan, and a number of counties in China experienced their hottest July on record. Temperatures tipped above 30C (86F) in the Arctic Circle, and record highs were knocked down in Finland, Norway, Amsterdam, UK, Ireland, and France. Spain and Portugal are now preparing to potentially break Europe’s heat record.
Climate scientists have linked these occasional extremes to a larger trend of global warming. Nevertheless, some say they were still surprised at the number of heat records being broken.”While I expect that high temperatures records will continue to be broken at abnormally high rates because of global warming, I would not have guess that so many would be broken in the same year,” researcher Michael Wehner told Axios.