90% of the world's population just experienced the hottest summer on record

https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/90-of-the-worlds-population-just-experienced-the-hottest-summer-on-record/535117

By Chaffin Mitchell, AccuWeather staff writer

The Northern Hemisphere, which holds 90% of the world's population, just experienced its hottest meteorological summer on record, tied with 2016, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Monday.

For the year-to-date, 2019 is the third-warmest year on record after 2016 and 2017.

According to NOAA, nine of the 10 highest June-through-August global land and ocean surface temperatures have occurred since 2009.

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It was the second-hottest summer at a global level, according to NOAA, along with the second-hottest August on record for the planet.

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South America, Africa, Europe, the Gulf of Mexico and the Hawaiian region had a temperature departure from average for the summer months that ranked among the three warmest such periods on record. Africa, for example, had its warmest June-through-August period on record, according to NOAA's report.

Europe was baked by multiple scorching heat waves throughout the summer that spread record high temperatures across the continent, making Paris surpass its hottest temperature ever recorded. Germany and France had their third-warmest summers on record, while Austria had its second-warmest summer.

In July, France, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands and the United Kingdom all set new all-time high temperature records.

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Alaska is one area that has suffered the most from the heat. Eight of Alaska's top 13 warmest days on record were in 2019.

"The Anchorage airport reached 90 degrees for the first time in that weather station's history on July 4. Anchorage also topped 80 degrees eight times this year, the most ever since record keeping of the weather began there in 1917," Sojda said.

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