How global warming and La Niña fueled a summer of climate extremes

There is a joke about a person who has his left foot in a bucket of ice water and the right in a bucket of hot water, so that his temperature is average. The planet was tied for the fifth warmest June-August of all time, yet regional heat waves shattered records.

While global warming is a factor, it's not the only factor that can be confusing to the public.

My new book, " The Changing Flow of Energy Through the Climate System," details the causes, feedbacks, and impacts of these issues, and I have been working on them for more than 40 years. Climate change and La Nia influence what we see around the world today.

The Northern Hemisphere’s extreme summer

There have been many climate-related disasters in Summer 2022.

An estimated 33 million people were affected by monsoon flooding in Pakistan as a result of record-breaking heat waves. In May, the temperature in Jacobabad, Pakistan, broke 122 F (50 C) for the first time in recorded history.

The glaciers in the Himalayas were melting due to the heat in Asia. Three times the normal yearly rain fell in Pakistan during the monsoon. More than 1,500 people died in the flooding and an estimated 1.7 million homes were damaged or destroyed. There will be a shortage of food in the future.

The fires in Spain and Portugal were caused by the extreme heat. The long-submerged Spanish Stonehenge, an ancient circle of megalithic stones believed to date back to around 5000 BC, was revealed by the drying up of a water source. Electricity generation in France plummeted, with low rivers reducing the ability to cool nuclear power towers, and German barges had difficulty navigating the Rhine River.