Why hot world record?

The Earth is nearing the farthest position of the sun in 2010, but temperatures in many cities around the world are reaching record highs in several decades.

Picture 1 of Why hot world record?

Artwork: jootix.com.

National Geographic confirms the distance between the sun and the planet does not determine the temperature of our planet's surface. So it is not related to hot sunshine, snowstorm and other weather phenomena.

On July 6, the earth reached a location about 152 million kilometers from the sun. It is the farthest point of its sun. When the point is closest to the sun, the distance between the two bodies is approximately 147 million km.

When the earth was the farthest from the sun, the amount of light it received was only about 7% less than when it was nearest, Ricky Patterson, an astronomer from the University of Virginia, USA.

So if the distance between the sun and the earth does not cause a terrible heat wave today, what factors are the culprits?

David Robinson, a meteorologist at Rutgers University in the United States, said that prolonged heat is caused by a combination of many factors: extremely low humidity in the ground, less clouds in the sky and high pressure areas. prolonged in the atmosphere.

Long stretches of high pressure areas can last for a long time in an area, causing the air to heat up and push the clouds to another area. The lower the amount of clouds, the more sunlight shines on the ground. If the ground is already hot and dry, the amount of additional heat makes the surface temperature rise. Heatwaves ended when high pressure areas weakened and other weather systems pushed them away.

Robinson added that people should not blame a particular individual when hot weather occurs.

'The culprit is the weather system, not the climate. A heat wave, even harsh summer, is not a human-induced result, ' he explained.