The summer of 2024 was Earth’s hottest season on record. Extreme temperatures sizzled around the world, and billions of people were exposed to dangerous levels of heat.
Climate change, not surprisingly, played a major role, scientists have found.
New analysis from the climate research and communication nonprofit Climate Central finds that the average person worldwide experienced 34 days of “risky heat” between June and August of this year. Those are conditions hotter than 90 percent of the temperatures ever recorded locally between 1991 and 2020, constituting levels of heat that scientists deem dangerous for human health.
These temperatures were worsened by global warming, the analysis adds. Without the influence of human-caused climate change, the average person would have experienced 17 fewer days of risky heat over the last three months.
