You’re not imagining it — since records were kept in 1880, this is, globally, the world’s hottest summer.
This week, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
revealed that the Earth is on course for the hottest year since record-keeping began in 1880 – 0.7 degrees above the 20th-century average.
It is the sweltering outcome of a bizarre confluence of abnormal weather that has been swirling about the globe for months – in the process parching Thai crops, melting German roads, thwarting Canadian military operations and wreaking worldwide climatic havoc.
I left my home in suburban New York July 8 and flew to Toronto, where the heat was a brutal 90+ degrees for days. I was perpetually sweat-drenched, from 8:00 a.m. on and spent the entire day in a mall just to be somewhere light, cool and with seating and food.
I flew to Vancouver, hoping for relief. None. Now I am in Victoria, on Vancouver Island — and it is heaven. Ten degrees cooler with fresh breezes daily. It is ten degrees hotter back in New York.
My friend and T/S colleague Scott Bowen eschews A/C. God bless him, but there are days — no matter how hard I try — I cannot: my apartment is on the top floor with a flat roof that soaks up the sun and I face northwest. I work at home and, even when I close the curtains to shut out the heat and light, there are days I really feel I will faint or throw up while trying to perform intelligent paid work in an uncooled environment.
I don’t like AC: it’s noisy and claustrophobic and the electricity bills are insane. And, oh yeah, it stresses the power grid when we all crank it up.
How are you coping with this heat?
Have you changed your life in any way to accommodate it?
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Broadside 
Air conditioning and misery are my mechanisms. Turn ’em both on at once, though, and you risk a tornado.
Ms. Kelly,
What is fascinating to me is where are all of the Global Warming detractors who just a few months ago were suggesting the Global Climatic Change was all hooey because in parts of North America we just had one of the coldest and wettest winters (“Snowzilla”)? Now of course these people could not tell the difference between weather and climate but still, if they thought really cold weather in February proved that the climate was not changing, should not really hot weather in July prove that it is?
I hate to admit this but, I’m doing nothing to fight turning on the a/c in either my house or car as less than 10 years ago I didn’t even have a car with a/c.
We are currently sodding the front yard (and part of the back) because the company that demolished our burned-down house also demolished the entire frontyard — including the sidewalk. I told everyone, including the sod guy, that when we finally got it in the rain would stop and it would be in the 90s for weeks on end. Guess what? I’ve got to keep my big mouth shut because it seems all too often that when I speak it, it happens. Unfortunately, I spent too much on the sod not to water it, so my water bill this summer is going to be astronomical. I really miss my zoysia!
Coping? Well, I’m sitting in the shade or by a fan reading Eaarth: Making a life on a tough new planet by Bill McKibben. It’s a scary, sobering, horrifying read … hot summers just may be the least of our worries
Good to know! Stay cool…
It’s been very close to 100 degree here in Colorado and it’s most unpleasant in the land of never summer to say the least. The good news is that our Spring was long and mild, but the bad news is we’re seeing these dramatic spikes in temperature now. My feeling is that this indicative of climate change, and I’m sure scores of people have their own opinion. I’m not sure we can do anything about in the short term other than to be open to ideas that may mitigate our carbon output. In the meantime, it’s either under water at the pool, or underground in the basement until the heat passes. I concur with Scott Bowen, AC is an abomination, but I thank the maker when it is this hot.
I always think of Colorado as somewhere that must have cool breezes, but what do I know? I am lucky enough to live on the top floor, and very near a river so we generally enjoy temp’s about 10 degrees cooler than Manhattan. I generally avoid the city between June and September for that reason.
It has been a year of apocalyptic weather — floods, earthquakes, tornadoes and this heat.