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By Maria Azzurra Volpe
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Millions of Americans faced scorching temperatures last week, as the beginning of summer brought an extreme heatwave across central and eastern states, setting new temperature records in Maryland, Minnesota, Vermont and places inbetween.
A satellite map shared by NASA, shows the air temperatures on June 24 reaching peaks of 104 degrees Fahrenheit around 2 p.m. Eastern Time in parts of the Midwest and along the East Coast.
Boston and New York City broke June temperature records, hitting 102 degrees Fahrenheit. On the same day, seven states in the Northeast—including Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont—either tied or broke monthly high temperature records.
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On that day, the National Weather Service issued heat advisories for large parts of the Midwest, Northeast and Southeast, as well as extreme heat warnings for areas along the East Coast from North Carolina to Maine.
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Just two days earlier, on June 22, the city of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, reached its warmest-ever daily low of 82 degrees Fahrenheit, Meanwhile, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Wallops Island, Virginia—among other locations—also set or tied June records for warm daily lows.
On that same day, Minneapolis, Minnesota, set a daily record high of 96 degrees Fahrenheit—while St. Francis, Kansas, was the hottest place in the country at 104 degrees, making it even hotter than California's notorious Death Valley.
The heatwave was caused by a large area of high pressure in the upper atmosphere—known as a "heat dome"—which traps heat and humidity in the lower atmosphere, blocking cooler air from coming in.
According to the World Meteorological Organization, climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of heatwaves since the 1950s, increasing the risk of disease, food scarcity and a loss of local plants and animals as a result.
Human-driven greenhouse gas emissions have caused Earth's average temperatures to raise by over 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit since the Industrial Revolution, with a rapid acceleration starting in the 1970s, at a rate of roughly 0.27 to 0.36 degrees per decade.
Global warming is uneven, and so temperatures don't necessarily rise everywhere at same rate. That's because land areas usually warm up faster than oceans, as water is slower to absorb and release heat. Even within specific land masses and ocean basins, warming may differ substantially.
Do you have a science story to share with Newsweek? Do you have a question about climate change? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.
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