All Time Maximum Temperatures In Much Of World Set In Recent Decades, Driven By Climate Change

Climatologist Zeke Hausfather analyzed the dates
of all time record highs around the world.
Most of them have been set in recent decades.
Yellow shades are record highs in the past
two or three decades. Green shades are older
record highs still in effect. 

Climate change deniers like to say that global warming can't be happening, since all time record highs in much of the United States were set in the 1930s. 

If the world is warming up, shouldn't the records have been set more recently?

Turns out in most of the world, all time record highs have been set recently. 

A recent analysis by climatologist Zeke Hausfather shows that all time record highs have been falling left and right over the past couple of decades.  Parts of the United States is a bit of an anomaly. 

About 38 percent of Earth's land area has seen all-time record highs in the 2020s. That's much more than any other full decade, and the 2020s are only a little more than half over. 

Roughly 29 percent of land areas set all time records were set in the 2010s, and 10 percent of the all time maximums were in the 2000s.  Four percent were set in the 1990s.

Hausfather acknowledged a few places have long standing record highs. "There are a few regions - central North America, central and southern Africa, western India, etc. - that saw records set earlier, but this is not unexpected due to regional temperature variability (e.g. weather)." he wrote. 

THE 1930S

Odd and extreme intense and persistent summertime heat domes settled over central North America several times in the 1930s. The weather pattern was made even more extreme by natural, but unusual oceanic cycles in the Pacific Ocean. 

A deep drought also settled over the Plains in the 1930s. Poor agricultural practices led to bare soil instead of vegetation, which exacerbated the heat.  Of course when the winds came up, the soil blew away, which is why the era in the Plains was labeled the Dust Bowl.

As for the 1930s, 3.3 of Earth's land mass still have their all time records set in that decade. That's slightly more than all other decades not mentioned above. 

"So the next time someone highlights a small region of the world to say that extreme heat has occurred before, suggest that they might be picking cherries rather than seeing the larger picture - a rapidly warming world on top of regional natural climate variability that is forcing more and more regions to set new all-time records each year, "  Hausfather wrote. 

The climate deniers' trope, "so many 1930s record highs so climate change doesn't exist"  is actually threatened. In recent years, some of those record highs from the 1930s have been threatened, but few have been matched - yet.  I think that will come in a matter of time. 

Speaking of which, all time record highs here  in Vermont are incredibly old compared to the rest of the world. The state's highest temperature was 105 degrees way back on July 4, 1911. In Burlington, the all-time high was 101 degrees on August 11, 1944. 

There's been a bunch of close misses lately that almost broke those records. Those heat waves hit before or after the peak of summer, so we couldn't quite get to the records. 

The most recent example was in June, when North Springfield, Vermont reached 103 degrees. During the same heat wave, it was 99 in Burlington. I still think in a summer sooner rather than later, we will break those all time records in Vermont. 

Across the pond, Plattsburgh, New York, tied its all time record high of 101 degrees. Lebanon, New Hampshire also reached their all time high temperature of 100 degrees on June 24. 

You can read the entirety of Hausfather's analysis in this link. 

DAILY HEAT RECORDS

This isn't just about all-time records, either. Record highs for any particular dates are far exceeding record lows. For the United States. Climate Central last December released an analysis of daily record highs and lows in the United States

Lately we've been outpacing even the 1930s for the number of daily record highs. According to Climate Central:

"The Great Plains Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s marked a period of extraordinary heat extremes in the U.S. During the 1930s, warm season (May-August) daily heat records outpaced daily cold records at rates not seen again until the 2010s. Data so far for the 2020s indicate that rate of record breaking heat in the current decade may exceed those seen during the 1930s." 

The Climate Central analysis said 217 of 247 locations studied had more heat records than cold records between January, 2020 and November 26. 2024.

Twenty-one of those locations set only heat records, and no cold records. Tampa, Florida, was the most remarkable. They had 114 record highs and no record lows. Phoenix, Arizona was almost as bad with 110 record highs and no record lows.

By my count here in Vermont, Burlington has tied or broken 52 record highs between January 1, 2020 and today. During that time, there was only one daily record low. 

For a four or five year time period, the number of record highs and record lows should be roughly the same if there were no climate change.  

This week, we're entering a cool spell, so no record highs are anticipated for the foreseeable future. But, no record lows are coming our way, either.  

You might hear of some record lows in the upcoming week in parts of the eastern United States. That still happens, despite climate change. But inevitably, somewhere in America, sometime soon, another  record warm spell will dwarf the size of this November's chilly weather.