No matter where we live, we’re all being affected by climate change; and the more carbon we produce, the worse it will get. Last week, the earth experienced its hottest day on record and it didn’t just happen once or even twice. For four straight days in a row, from July 3 through July 6, the global average daily temperature was higher than anything humans have ever previously recorded.

Unfortunately, the record-breaking temperatures are the result of only 1% of the heat trapped inside the climate system by all the carbon we emit. The vast majority of that heat is going into the ocean, which is also reaching record high temperatures these days. The North Atlantic Ocean reached its highest temperatures last month in over 170 years of record-keeping, surpassing the average by as much as 5° C. With a naturally occurring El Niño event expected on top of the long-term warming trend this year, scientists are worried about the speed of the changes we’re seeing in the world’s oceans.

Heavy rains in southwestern Japan have washed away homes, flooded hospitals and cut off power and water to hundreds of households. In the United States, about 56.7 million people - 17 percent of the mainland population - live in areas expected to have dangerous levels of heat. A high-pressure dome parked over the Southwest is elevating temperatures from Florida to California, and Texas, where the heat wave has already led to at least 13 deaths, continues to experience weeks of extreme heat over 100° F.  Ironically, it's wind and solar power that are keeping the power grid running. 

According to a recent study out of Northwestern University, the ground between the City of Chicago has warmed by an average of 5.6° F since the mid-20th century.  All that heat, which comes mostly from basements and other underground structures, has caused the layers of sand, clay and rock beneath some buildings to subside or swell by several millimeters over the decades, enough to worsen cracks and defects in walls and foundations.

Across the Northeast, deadly floods have inundated towns from New Tork State to Quebec. After days of heavy rain drove rivers across the region to some of their highest levels on record, streets in Vermont's capital city of Montpelier are underwater today as rescuers try to reach people stranded in remote mountain towns. But some people couldn’t be reached by boat and authorities say that helicopters are trying to airlift some stranded residents from dangerous floodwaters

Meanwhile, hail storms across the U.S. in the month of June have 2023 poised to be the costliest severe-weather year on record. These storms aren't getting more frequent, as far as scientists can tell, but climate change may be making hail stones bigger. Large hail stones associated with the latest round of storms damaged crops and homes and injured more than 100 concert-goers at Denver’s Red Rocks Amphitheater last week.

In Canada, Fort Good Hope in the Northwest Territories hit a record-breaking 99° F last week, the hottest temperature ever recorded that far north in Canada.  Nearly two months of coast-to-coast wildfires in Canada have already burned an area nearly equal to the size of Virginia, and smoke from many of these wildfires continues to pollute the skies across the U.S. The only good news in all of this is that the heavy rains in Quebec has brought some relief to the wildfires.