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World Breaks Hottest Day Record for 2nd Day in a Row

A Cuban fisherman rests in a makeshift raft at sunset in Havana Bay on July 19, 2024. (Photo by YAMIL LAGE / AFP)
A Cuban fisherman rests in a makeshift raft at sunset in Havana Bay on July 19, 2024. (Photo by YAMIL LAGE / AFP)
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World Breaks Hottest Day Record for 2nd Day in a Row

A Cuban fisherman rests in a makeshift raft at sunset in Havana Bay on July 19, 2024. (Photo by YAMIL LAGE / AFP)
A Cuban fisherman rests in a makeshift raft at sunset in Havana Bay on July 19, 2024. (Photo by YAMIL LAGE / AFP)

The world again registered its hottest day on record on Monday, July 22, inching past Sunday which had just taken the title, according to preliminary data from a European Union monitoring agency.
As heatwaves sizzled around the world and wildfires engulfed parts of the Mediterranean, Russia and Canada, the global average surface air temperature rose to 17.15 degrees Celsius (62.87 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday. That was 0.06 C (0.11 F) higher than Sunday's record according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, which has tracked such data since 1940.
This includes temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere which is currently in winter, bringing down the worldwide average.
Scientists said it was possible that Tuesday or Wednesday of this week could again surpass Monday's record, as temperature peaks generally happen in clusters, Reuters reported.
The last record hot day was in July 2023, when the daily peak was broken across four consecutive days from July 3 through 6. Before that, it was set in August 2016.
What makes this year's record unusual is that unlike in 2023 and 2016, the world in April moved out of the El Nino climate pattern which generally amplifies global temperatures owing to warmer-than-usual waters in the Eastern Pacific.
Karsten Haustein, a climate scientist at Leipzig University in Germany, said it was remarkable that the record had been breached again now with the world well into the "neutral" phase of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation.
This points to the greater-than-ever influence of climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, in boosting global temperatures.
"This past Monday might have set a new global record for warmest absolute global average temperature ever - by that I mean going back tens of thousands of years," Haustein said.

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Surprise Blast of Rock, Water and Steam in Yellowstone Sends Dozens Running for Safety

Photos and video of the aftermath showed damaged guardrails and boards covered in rock and silt near muddy pools. - The AP
Photos and video of the aftermath showed damaged guardrails and boards covered in rock and silt near muddy pools. - The AP
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Surprise Blast of Rock, Water and Steam in Yellowstone Sends Dozens Running for Safety

Photos and video of the aftermath showed damaged guardrails and boards covered in rock and silt near muddy pools. - The AP
Photos and video of the aftermath showed damaged guardrails and boards covered in rock and silt near muddy pools. - The AP

A surprise eruption in Yellowstone National Park shot steam, water and dark-colored rock and dirt high into the sky Tuesday and sent sightseers running for safety.

The hydrothermal explosion happened around 10 a.m. in Biscuit Basin, a collection of hot springs a couple miles north of the famous Old Faithful Geyser, The AP reported.

Video posted online showed a couple dozen people watching from a boardwalk as the eruption sprayed and grew in front of them. As water and debris began to fall, they ran to keep clear, some yelling “Back up!" People then turned to watch the spectacle under a huge cloud of steam.

No injuries were reported, but the Biscuit Basin area was closed for visitor safety. The eruption damaged a boardwalk that keeps people off Yellowstone’s fragile and often dangerous geothermal areas.

Vlada March was on a tour in the basin when her guide said something unusual was happening. March started taking video.

“We saw more steam coming up and within seconds it became this huge thing,” said March, a California real estate agent who was with her mom, husband and their two kids. “It just exploded and became like a black cloud that covered the sun.”

“I think our tour guide said ‘Run,’ and I started running and I started screaming at the kids, ‘Run, run, run,’ and I continued filming what I could,” she said.

Rocks that fell from the sky smashed the boardwalk they had been walking on. March's mom, who had been sitting on a bench near the explosion, was shaken and dirty but otherwise fine, she said.

Walking back on the broken boardwalk “was a little scary,” she said, “but thankfully it didn’t break under us.”

Photos and video of the aftermath showed damaged guardrails and boards covered in rock and silt near muddy pools.

The explosion could have resulted from a clogged passageway in the extensive natural plumbing network that underlies Yellowstone's world-famous geysers, hot springs and other thermal features, said scientist Mike Poland with the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

A clog would have caused a buildup of heat and pressure such as happens inside a pressure cooker, he said, until the water suddenly flashed to steam, causing an instantaneous and huge expansion in volume and triggering the explosion.

After viewing video from the event Poland estimated that the explosion sent material about 100 feet (30 meters) into the air.

He said the explosion was “on the big side” of eruptions that occur periodically — usually when no one is around let alone throngs of tourists.

On occasion they get much bigger: The largest known crater from a hydrothermal explosion on Earth is in Yellowstone and measures 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) across, Poland said. Scientists theorize that a series of hydrothermal explosions created that crater some 13,800 years ago in the Mary Bay area on the northeastern side of Yellowstone Lake.