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Europe's All-Time Heat Record Set In Sicily At Nearly 120 Degrees (axios.com) 324

A weather station in Sicily may have set an all-time high temperature record for all of Europe on Wednesday, when the temperature climbed to a scorching 48.8C (119.8F) amid a regional heat wave that has shown few signs of relenting. Axios reports: Numerous monthly and national temperature records have fallen during the heat wave, including in Greece, Turkey and Tunisia, but if verified through an examination of the weather instruments, the Sicily observation would be the most noteworthy. The previous continental heat record was 48C (118.4F), set in Greece in 1977. For the record to be considered, a committee from the World Meteorological Organization would need to investigate the instrumentation and circumstances of the data, including whether similar temperatures were observed nearby.

As detailed in the IPCC climate report released Monday, human emissions of greenhouse gases are dramatically escalating the risk and severity of extreme heat events across the globe. This summer has featured unprecedented heat in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S., as well as in Europe. In the U.S. on Wednesday, about 170 million are under heat advisories or excessive heat warnings from the Northwest to East Coast. The hottest temperatures associated with this particular heat dome are expected to shift to Spain and Portugal in coming days, raising wildfire concerns in both nations.
In June, Canada broke a national heat record when the temperature in a small town in British Columbia reached almost 116 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking an 84-year-old record by nearly 3 degrees.
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Europe's All-Time Heat Record Set In Sicily At Nearly 120 Degrees

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  • Global Cooling (Score:2, Offtopic)

    by guacamole ( 24270 )

    In the light of this news, the 92F degree humid weather here in Corpus Christi feels almost refreshing.

  • by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2021 @10:44PM (#61682849)
    Why do Americans have to keep using Fahrenheit while nearly everyone else in the world moved on to Celsius? Use proper units and stop confusing the rest of the world, would you?
    • by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Wednesday August 11, 2021 @10:52PM (#61682859)

      Why do Americans have to keep using Fahrenheit while nearly everyone else in the world moved on to Celsius? Use proper units and stop confusing the rest of the world, would you?

      Just be glad they have standardised the definition of the 'foot' and don't keep changing it every time there is a new president with a different shoe size.

      • That is actually a really good thing.
        I have heard the previous one was bragging about that everything on his body is bigger ...

    • Maybe because the diff between 20C and 30C is rather extreme. Or the fact that 23C is warm as shit when the number is damn close to 0c, a temp you would not consider fun to be in. Its the scale. If the index has even twice the range, 0C freezing and 200C boiling, it would be adopted a lot easier. A 10 degree variant in temps in Fahrenheit is no big deal. So in a way, the F scale is a bit more granular in terms of habitable zones. Having to cope with decimals is like fractions. The natural inclination is th
      • by Cyberax ( 705495 )

        In Celcius it feels like youre micro managing decimals to cook steaks.

        Why? You don't need a 1F precision to cook a steak. Whole degrees of Celsius work just fine.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        If the index has even twice the range, 0C freezing and 200C boiling, it would be adopted a lot easier.

        But degrees C is adopted a lot easier. 95% of the world's population use C.

        Nobody gives a flying fuck if their steak was cooked at 135.1F vs 135.8F. Its still rare. Once you hit 140F you crossed into Medium Rare pushing Medium. In Celcius it feels like youre micro managing decimals to cook steaks.

        Yeah, the French are unable to cook their steaks to bleu. In fact they had to steal the word "bleu" from the Uni

    • Public pronouncement in the US in Fahrenheit of temperature anywhere in the universe is proper. Perhaps you wanted Kelvin, Rømer, or Newton degrees? Did you know Fahrenheit is the first thermometer that used mercury? Since Fahrenheit degrees are smaller than Celsius or Kelvin degrees an integer can be more accurate than other temperature scales. Basing temperature on freezing and boiling of water is arbitrary. There's nothing magic about Celsius or Fahrenheit.

      If the temperature is -40.0 degrees th

    • by U0K ( 6195040 )
      You should know that this easily triggers some of the more stubborn Americans. And now we have an otherwise serious issue that concerns everyone on this planet side tracked by petty bickering about the scales that are used to measure dick sizes.

      It's easy enough to do conversions as long as the scales in themselves are used consistently. Especially if you're trying to insinuate that non-Imperial users are somehow smarter.
      So what's the big deal? Ah yes, you're either a idiot, or someone who deliberately wan
      • I measure my dick in 3 ways:
        a) cm - so it looks bigger in relation to inches
        b) at 0Â Fahrenheit standing in cold water (around 30F) - so it is objective, right?

        So I can not offend the big huge black guy besides me at the other pissoir - oh shit, I should have used inches to look smaller.

        • by U0K ( 6195040 )
          I think you miscounted the ways you measure. That's 5 ways.

          Maybe we should use something that will piss everyone off. How about light-seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years? That'll confuse people simply because the label ends in a unit of time, like parallax second confused George Lucas.

          Or maybe we should using Planck units like the Planck length. Then you have 1 lp ~1.616E-35 * m or 1 lp ~6.363E-34 * in. And nobody is happy.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      Like how the British use Stone, and Miles, or even more painful metric horsepower? Or the Canadians use Feet?

      Fuck off, unit supremacist.
    • Give me a break. With computers being so ubiquitous and easy to use everyone can get a temperature conversion in seconds. If you are confused by temperatures then maybe you need an introduction to computers and the internet.

      For myself I think of degrees F when considering weather and cooking, and I think of degrees C when doing science and engineering. Rarely do I need to do a conversion, and when I do there's a half dozen electronic aids for such a conversion in reach at nearly all times. When there is

      • Strange that you forgot 100F == 37C == "normal human body temperature".
        Perhaps that would have pointed out how retarded the 0F == ~-16C towards 100F == ~37C is.

        No offence to Mister Fahrenheit, he was a scientist and his results are appreciated!

        • Strange that you forgot 100F == 37C == "normal human body temperature".

          How is that strange in a discussion about weather and how ubiquitous electronics are to perform conversions? If I have a thermometer to measure body temperature then it is near certain it is either electronic, and will do the conversion for me, or some kind of analog thermometer marked off in both scales. I picked those numbers to extrapolate from because they are exact, not some approximation. If I'm needing to calculate a conversion precisely then I'd want precise points to start from.

          Perhaps that would have pointed out how retarded the 0F == ~-16C towards 100F == ~37C is.

          Um, yes, that is

    • Well, on the other hand it would become harder to taunt them with having an IQ below room temperature.

    • I agree, let's insist people give up all those silly little local languages like German and Japanese. Everyone child just speak English and it would massively reduce confusion and improve communication.

      I mean, that's your argument, right?

    • Those are Freedom Units, you ignorant clod!
  • The gulf is slowing down heat transport, heat needs to go from south to north in the norther hemisphere (from hot to cold) and it will either do this through the air or the water. Air has a much lower heat capacity than water (and lower mass) and is a poor convector of heat when compared water. Therefore we have much more heating of the air, because the heat is moving through the air to get north and not through water (through the gulf).

    Now I need a climate scientist to correct me if I'm wrong.

  • by Nabeel_co ( 1045054 ) on Thursday August 12, 2021 @12:01AM (#61682973) Homepage

    For fucks sake, for one, the majority of the world uses Celsius, for another, if you're talking about a country that uses metric units, use metric units! It doesn't make sense in context otherwise. I'd never expect to see temperatures in the US expressed in Celsius, so why are we expressing temperatures in Canada and Italy in Fahrenheit?!

    It's sloppy an inconsistent writing.

  • Such a lack of backbone in any of the western leaders, and ppl like Putin and Xi are not caring.
    • They're both well over 50 and won't have to suffer from the fallout this produces. On the other hand, they want to stay in power for as long as they can, and they probably can for another 10 or 20 years.

      It's a bit like a CEO doing something that everyone knows will sink the company in 5 years but ensures that his annual bonus will buy him a new island before this bites his successor in the rear.

  • 48.8C, actually (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday August 12, 2021 @01:52AM (#61683127)

    The story says so, but the title should use non-obsolete units as well, as this is about Europe.

  • by ayesnymous ( 3665205 ) on Thursday August 12, 2021 @02:04AM (#61683139)
    We are seeing a lot of 110-120 degrees all over the world recently. What is preventing temps from going up into the 140s and 150s?
    • by MacMann ( 7518492 ) on Thursday August 12, 2021 @03:14AM (#61683251)

      We are seeing a lot of 110-120 degrees all over the world recently. What is preventing temps from going up into the 140s and 150s?

      Water. Water is what is keeping the temperatures in check. The surface of Earth has a lot of water, and it takes a lot of energy to raise the temperature of water. Water moves around the surface of the planet on the winds, it falls from the sky, and it flows downhill. This will spread that heat around which will keep extremes from going too far in either direction.

  • Cool!
  • Fahrenheit? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Thursday August 12, 2021 @04:07AM (#61683347) Homepage
    If a developed country like the US can't even get with the world and use Celsius, what are the chances we'll all be able to work together to mitigate climate change? Absolute zero, I'm afraid.
  • Degrees what Kelvin, Celcius oh yeah Fahrenheit....
  • All Time Heat Record... so far.

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