Phoenix’s record stretch of daily highs over 110F (43.3C) ended Monday as cooling monsoon rains slightly tempered the dangerous heatwave that suffocated the American south-west throughout July.
The region, from Texas across New Mexico and Arizona and into California’s desert, has been grappling with historic heat since June. Phoenix and its suburbs sweltered more intensely than most, with several records including the 31 consecutive days of 110F days. The previous record was 18 straight days, set in 1974.
The streak was finally broken Monday, when the high topped out at 108F (42.2C), the National Weather Service reported.
But the reprieve was expected to be brief, with the forecast calling for highs again above 110F for several days later in the week. And National Weather Service meteorologist Matthew Hirsch said August could be even hotter than July.
Over 50 million Americans remain under a heat advisory in one of the hottest summers ever recorded, and a heatwave continues to affect vast parts of the country.
Nasa recently confirmed June was the hottest June ever.
The hot and dry weather in the south-west of the US has set off a wave of wildfires. California and Nevada are currently battling a major fire that is uncontrolled. Another out-of-control fire that originated in Washington state has spread into Canada, forcing residents in the town of Osoyoos, British Columbia, to evacuate.
Doctors in the south-west reported a rise in first-, second-, and third-degree contact-burn cases, some fatal, amid extreme heat conditions.
The reports of severe burn incidents came from hospitals in Arizona and Nevada, where deaths from heat-related conditions have surged.
Maricopa county, Arizona’s most populous and home to Phoenix, reported 25 heat-related deaths this year as of 21 July, and hundreds more are under investigation. The county reported 425 heat-associated deaths in all of 2022, with more than half in July.
In Texas, San Antonio hit an all-time high of 117F in June.
Bodies of water around the world are experiencing a phenomenon known as “marine heatwave”, when waters warm to unprecedented levels. A sharp rise in temperatures has been seen in the Caribbean Basin, the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the already fragile ecosystems of marine life, particularly coral reefs. The conditions cause coral to bleach, and in many cases, die.
Andrew Baker, director of the Coral Reef Futures Lab at the University of Miami told the Washington Post: “This is definitely the worst bleaching event Florida has ever seen.”
Ocean surface temperatures in places such as Florida have surpassed 90F, the threshold for water to be safe to swim in. The hot-tub like temperatures left its residents with limited options for cooling down.
Amid record-breaking heat levels, Joe Biden last week announced new measures to protect Americans against the “existential threat of climate change” and extreme heat. Some of these measures include improving access to clean drinking water, planting more trees, opening more cooling centers and cracking down on labor heat-safety violations.
Biden said: “We want the American people to know help is here, and we’re gonna make it available to anyone who needs it.”
Experts say the measures are a step in the right direction, but not nearly enough. In his address, Biden stopped short of declaring a climate emergency or directly addressing the need to phase out planet-heating fossil fuels.
On Monday, four Democratic senators – Bernie Sanders, Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley and Elizabeth Warren – sent a letter to the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, urging him to bring lawsuits against the fossil-fuel industry for its longstanding and carefully coordinated campaign to mislead consumers and discredit climate science in pursuit of huge profits.
In the letter, the lawmakers wrote: “The fossil-fuel industry has had scientific evidence about the dangers of climate change and the role that burning fossil fuels play in increasing global temperatures for more than 50 years.”
They added: “Despite these companies’ knowledge about climate change and the role their industry was playing in driving carbon emissions, they chose to participate in a decades-long, carefully coordinated campaign of misinformation to obfuscate climate science and convince the public that fossil fuels are not the primary driver of climate change.”
