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. 

Climate Denialists Use 1930s Heat As A Red Herring

 It seems like every time somebody mentions climate change on social media, some clown will interject "but the 1930s!"

From Berkeley Earth: Maps show how far
above or below the 20th century average
summertime high temperatures were in the
1930s (top) and the period 2013-2022
(bottom). So no, the world was NOT hotter
in the 1930s, despite extreme heat
in central North America. 

That's because many of the worst heat waves in U.S. history happened then. In 14 states, the  hottest temperatures on record came in July, 1936 and those records still stand.  

Many cities in the Great Plains, Midwest and Middle Atlantic States still have all time record highs occurring in the 1930s. 

The denialists are absolutely correct that the heat in the middle of North America as off the charts in the 1930s. 

What the forget to note is most of the rest of the world was relatively cool. They kinda take the "globe" out of global warming. 

They also don't talk about the reasons why those summers were so hot.  Farming practices contributed to the heat. Also, there are natural cycles that will make certain place especially hot or cold, and this will happen with or without climate change.  

The denialists also forget about the fact that there were intensely, record cold winters in the 1930s, and the winter cold was much more widespread than the summer heat. 

DUST BOWL HEAT REASONS

The 1930s brought the Great Depression, which was bad enough, and the famous "Dust Bowl" years. 

The University of Nebraska National Drought Mitigation Center tells us what led to the heat and the Dust Bowl:

"'Boosters of the region, hoping to  promote settlement, put forth glowing but inaccurate accounts of the Great Plains' agricultural potential. In addition to this inaccurate information, most settlers had little moment and few other assets, and their farming experience was based on conditions in the more humid eastern United States, so the crops and cultivation practices they chose were often not suitable for the Great Plains. 

But the earliest settlements occurred during a wet cycle, and the first crops flourished, so settlers were encouraged to continue prices that would later have to be abandoned."

Then, as Yale Climate Connections explains, natural cycles with roots in far away oceans contributed to an intense Great Plains drought from about 1928 to around 1942. 

This cycle encouraged the familiar "heat dome" we so frequently talk about nowadays to set up shop over the middle of North America.  

Those bad agricultural practices created vast expanses of bare soil that absorbed the sun's heat to maximize the sun's heating. That made temperatures soar to unprecedented levels. Those record highs stand to this day. 

The heat was so intense it was able to spread into south-central Canada and the Mid-Atlantic States. But much of the world avoided this disaster, partly because climate change hadn't kicked in yet. 

COOL ELSEWHERE   

Vermont was much like the rest of the world in the 1930s. We sat out the 1930s dust bowl heat. July, 1936 was cooler than normal. Burlington that month only made it to 90 twice, and reached 80 or above just eight days during the entire month. 

July, 1934 was also extremely hot in the Great Plains and other parts of the nation. Not so here in Vermont. July that year in Burlington had close to average temperatures, but the hottest it got all month was one day of 90 degree temperatures. 

Berkeley Earth did a comparison showing how average daily maximum temperatures worldwide during the 1930s compare to "normal" base on 1951-1980.

The maps show central North America was indeed very hot. Much of Europe was on the warm side, too. But vast areas of the world were a little on the cool side during Depression-era summer afternoons. 

If you look at the 1930s based on the whole year, not just the summer, you see that central North America was only barely warmer than average. Intensely cold winters during the 1930s offset those hot summers. 

Meanwhile, the most recent ten year period cited in the data  from 2013 to 2022 shows almost the entire world was warmer than in the 1930s. In many cases much warmer. 

 That climate denial trolls keep citing the 1930s heat in the Great Plains is a classic example of "cherry picking."

As Andrew Kessler and Zeke Hausfather wrote in The Climate Brink last year:

"Cherry picking is a tactic where someone selectively chooses a small portion of a data set that contradicts the conclusion drawn from the entire dataset. This aims to mislead the audience by presenting a distorted picture of reality, leading them to question established facts."

In other words, they're practicing the art of Kellyanne Conway's famous "alternative facts." Another word for all this is gaslighting.

Always look out for that. 

The bottom line: No, the world wasn't hotter in the 1930s. Turns out that's a pants on fire lie.