Hurricane Beryl and Record Heat Define July 4 Holiday

After posting three times in a row the week before last, I thought I’d give your inbox a break. Add on top of that the complete saturation of the news cycle over the presidential debate and recent SCOTUS rulings, I can’t imagine many of you were up for reading stories about other disasters and impending doom.

There are more qualified voices than mine to speak on the consequences of SCOTUS rulings (you should check out a few of those voices here and here). While I’m seen as a Democratic insider, the bulk of my influence is in the progressive wing of the party, and my opinions on the debate have been made clear elsewhere.

Where my experience and expertise can provide meaningful insight comes from my education and professional career as an environmental scientist. 

And there’s no shortage of issues to discuss on that front.

Record-breaking heat continues 

Record-breaking heat is expected to bring temperatures upwards of 130 degrees F to the hottest place on Earth next week The most reliable highest temperature ever recorded on Earth – 130 degrees F recorded in Death Valley – may soon be broken. Death Valley previously broke its own records in both 2020 and then again in 2021.

Earth recorded its hottest day ever on July 6, 2023 – during what would become the hottest month on record, during the hottest year on record. This week – almost exactly one year later– the planet began what is likely to become its 16-month uninterrupted streak of record-breaking temperatures. 

April 2024 was the most anomalously warm month in history – a full 1.05 degrees celsius over the 1991-2020 record. The January to April global surface temperature ranked the warmest in NOAA's 175-year record.

Hurricane Beryl - a rare beast during a positive El Nino-to-neutral phase

Hurricanes are low-pressure storm systems that form over warm waters where atmospheric instability, lift and moisture are abundantly available, usually starting with thunderstorms. In the Northern Hemisphere, the planet’s Coriolis force causes storms to spin counter-clockwise, and global winds push systems around/away from the Bermuda high-pressure zone.

Those are the basic mechanics. 

Oceanic cycles also play a critical role. There’s the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and of course the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO).