Cool Chart, Hot Trend

Back in June, it was so hot in Arizona, mailboxes were melting and flights were unable to take off. Though people may have brushed this heatwave off as a fluke, research suggests summers are in fact getting hotter:

Extraordinarily hot summers — the kind that were virtually unheard-of in the 1950s — have become commonplace.

This year’s scorching summer events, like heat waves rolling through southern Europe and temperatures nearing 130 degrees Fahrenheit in Pakistan, are part of this broader trend.

During the base period, 1951 to 1980, about a third of summers across the Northern Hemisphere were in what they called a “near average” or normal range. A third were considered cold; a third were hot.

Since then, summer temperatures have shifted drastically, the researchers found. Between 2005 and 2015, two-thirds of summers were in the hot category, while nearly 15 percent were in a new category: extremely hot.

Practically, that means most summers today are either hot or extremely hot compared to the mid-20th century.

At the top of the article is an animation, showing the normal curve shifting to the right (toward warmer temperatures) over time. It's a great demonstration of this trend:

Thanks to my friend David over at The Daily Parker for sharing this story with me.