‘Gobsmackingly Bananas’ Record Temperatures Are Dividing Scientists
Global temperature records are being broken on a consecutive monthly basis. That’s not good.
A firefighter helicopter drops water as teams conduct extinguishing works by land and air to control wildfires in Palaiochori near Athens, Greece.
Photographer: Costas Baltas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
“Surprising. Astounding. Staggering. Unnerving. Bewildering. Flabbergasting. Disquieting. Gobsmacking. Shocking. Mind boggling.”
That’s not really what you want to hear from one of the world’s preeminent climate scientists in response to the latest global air temperature data, but that was the reaction of Ed Hawkins, professor of climate science at the University of Reading and creator of the iconic “warming stripes” visualization. Zeke Hausfather, a researcher at nonprofit group Berkeley Earth, described it more succinctly: “Gobsmackingly bananas.”