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Taking Earth's Temperature · The Climate Translation

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Have you ever gone to your doctor for an annual physical?
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One of the first things that often happens is they take a reading of your blood pressure,
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check your weight and height, and your temperature.
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But imagine if that was all they did, and then they said, everything looks great, have
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a nice day.
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Of course, that's not how medicine works.
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No single measurement tells a whole story about your health, and the same is true for
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our planet.
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Every month, scientists publish a comprehensive checkup for the Earth.
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The newly released report for June 2026 shows the planet just experienced the second
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warmest June on record alongside historic ocean surface temperatures.
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But a single record-breaking month is only one vital sign.
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Today, we're going to step back and look at the global climate the way scientists do,
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exploring how this combination of measurements reveals how the Earth is truly changing.
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Welcome back to the podcast, I'm Dr. Mac, and this is the Climate Translation.
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Before we can understand what this latest climate report is telling us, we need to answer
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a simple question.
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What is normal?
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It sounds like it should be an easy question, but in climate science, defining normal takes
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decades.
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If I asked you what the average temperature is where you live, you probably couldn't
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answer with a single number.
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After all, some days are hot, some days are cold, some days are wetter than others.
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Some are drier.
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The weather constantly changes.
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So instead of looking at one day, one month, or even one year, climate scientists calculate
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averages over long periods of time.
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Traditionally, they use 30-year periods to establish what we call a climate normal.
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It gives us a baseline.
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Think about teaching a class.
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If one student scores 100% on an exam, it tells you something about that student.
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But it doesn't tell you much about the class as a whole.
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To understand how the class is doing, you need everybody's scores.
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Then you calculate an average.
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Now imagine you do the same exam every year for your 30-year teaching career.
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Only then would you understand what normal performance actually is like.
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Climate scientists do something very similar.
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They combine measurements from thousands of weather stations on land, ships and bouys
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across the oceans, weather balloons, satellites, and many other observing systems around
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the world.
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From those observations, they calculate what is typical for a particular location and
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a particular time of year.
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The last part is important.
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Scientists don't compare June to January.
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They compare this June to all the other June's in the historic record.
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And that's because seasons matter.
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A June temperature that's completely ordinary in Georgia would be extraordinary in Northern
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Canada or in Australia where it's winter.
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So every month has its own baseline.
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Now once you've established the baseline, something interesting happens, instead of focusing
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on the actual temperature, scientists focus on the difference from normal.
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It's called an anomaly.
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Let's say that the average June temperature for a particular location is 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
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And then this year it reaches 82 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Now the anomaly isn't the 82 degrees, it's plus 2 degrees.
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But what does that matter?
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Because anomalies allow scientists to compare places that have completely different climates.
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A 2 degree change in Honolulu, a 2 degree change in London, a 2 degree change in Sydney.
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They all mean different temperatures, but they all represent a departure from what is
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normal for those locations.
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It's a common language that allows researchers to combine observations from around the whole
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planet.
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Once those anomalies are brought together, month after month, year after year, they can
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start to tell a story.
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Not about yesterday's weather, but about the climate itself and how it's changing.
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That's exactly what June 2026's report allows us to do.
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It gives us another chapter in a record that now stretches back for more than a century.
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So now that we understand what the climate baseline is, let's look at what scientists found
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in June of 2026.
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According to the latest reports from sources like NOAA and the Copernicus Climate Change
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Service, June 2026 was the second warmest June ever recorded globally, continuing a remarkable
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streak of above average temperatures that now stretches back half a century.
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If you've listened to this podcast for a while, that probably doesn't surprise you.
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We've talked about greenhouse gases, the planet's energy balance, and why the Earth continues
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to accumulate heat due to human influence.
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Every month adds another data point in that long-term trend.
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But one of the headlines that caught my attention wasn't actually about the air temperature.
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It was about the oceans.
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Ocean surface temperatures reached a new record for the month of June.
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Now, that may not sound as dramatic as a record breaking heatwave over land, but from
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a climate science perspective, it's actually the more important measurement.
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Here's why.
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Imagine putting a pot of water on your stove.
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If you turn the burner on, that metal pot will probably begin warming almost immediately.
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The water inside warms much more slowly.
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That's because water requires a lot more energy to raise its temperature than metal does.
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And our planet works the same way.
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The atmosphere responds fairly quickly to changes in energy.
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The oceans respond much more slowly.
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But because they contain such an enormous amount of water, they can store an incredible amount
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of heat.
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In fact, we've talked before about how more than 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse
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gases doesn't remain in the atmosphere.
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It ends up in the oceans.
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You can think of the oceans as the Earth's savings account for heat.
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Every year they pocket a little bit more energy and then release it back into space.
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Most of the time we don't notice the ocean just quietly stores it away.
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Which is why the ocean temperatures are one of the most valuable indicators that climate
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scientists have.
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Unlike the atmosphere, which can warm and cool fairly quickly, as weather systems move
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through, the ocean changes more slowly.
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It doesn't respond as dramatically to a cold front or a passing storm.
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Instead, it truly reflects the long-term balance of energy entering and leaving the Earth's
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system.
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That's one reason scientists pay such close attention to it.
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When ocean temperatures break records month after month, it means the planet is steadily
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trapping more and more energy.
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The heat doesn't sit there forever.
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It eventually bleeds back into the atmosphere.
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Warmer oceans supercharges evaporation, pumping extra moisture into the air and shifting global
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rainfall patterns.
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It wrecks marine ecosystems and, as we've talked about before, acts as a high octane
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fuel for tropical cyclones.
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In other words, the ocean isn't just keeping score.
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It's actively shaping the weather we experience every day.
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That's why climate scientists don't just stop at temperature spikes when reviewing reports
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like the one from this past June.
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Surface temperature is only one single vital sign to really see how the planet's doing.
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They have to read the rest of the chart.
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If you've ever had a dashboard warning light come on your car, you know the experience
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of having to take it to a mechanic.
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But that mechanic, hopefully, doesn't just glance at the dashboard and call it a day.
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They're going to pop the hood and check the cooling levels, to test the battery, to
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read the error codes and to look for leaks.
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No single warning light tells you the exact root of the problem.
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The scientists treat the planet the same way.
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Temperature may be the headline, but it's definitely not the whole story.
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Take sea ice, for example.
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Every month satellites measure how much of the Arctic and Antarctic oceans are covered
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by floating ice.
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At first glance, you might wonder why that matters.
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After all, sea ice is thousands of miles away from where we live.
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But remember something we've talked about before.
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Ice is bright.
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It reflects a large portion of the sun's energy back into space.
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Open ocean is much darker.
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It absorbs more energy.
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So when scientists track sea ice, they're not measuring just frozen water.
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They're monitoring one of the planets built in cooling systems.
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The June report showed global sea ice levels sitting well below the long-term average, extending
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a downward slide we've watched for decades.
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Again, a single month doesn't give you the whole story.
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But when you line it up against decades of data, it's becoming a glaring piece of
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a much larger puzzle.
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And scientists are paying close attention to the water in the atmosphere.
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Not just how much falls, but where it falls.
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One of the interesting things about the June report is that it reminds us there's no such
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thing as a global average day.
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While some parts of the world experienced exceptional heat and drought, other regions
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received well above average rainfall.
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I've seen that firsthand here in the Atlanta, Georgia area.
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It's been a remarkably wet summer compared to what people might expect when they hear
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the headlines about global warming and drought.
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And it's an important reminder, climate change doesn't mean every place becomes hotter
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and drier all at once.
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The atmosphere is constantly moving heat and moisture around the planet.
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As the climate system gains energy, those patterns are going to shift.
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Some regions become wetter, others become drier.
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Some experience stronger storms, others spend weeks under persistent high pressure with
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very little rainfall.
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That's why scientists don't ask a simple question like, was this month wet?
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Instead they ask, how did this month's rainfall compare to what's normal for that region?
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And finally, we monitor glaciers and snow cover.
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Not because snow itself tells us everything about climate, but because snow and ice are
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our natural reservoirs.
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If you remember in an earlier episode, we talk about glaciers as Earth's freshwater savings
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account, they're not simply frozen landscapes, they are the storage system for water during
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colder months that's gradually released during warmer seasons.
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Changes in snowpack and glaciers can affect water supply for millions of people downstream.
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And what have we've found in June's report? We've seen a dramatic decrease in the coverage
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of glaciers and snowpack.
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So each of these measurements, temperature, ocean heat, sea ice, rainfall, snowing glaciers,
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they're all telling scientists something slightly different, but they're all contributing
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to an answer to a question.
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They begin telling the story of how the entire Earth's system is changing.
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So after looking at all these measurements, a natural question emerges.
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How are scientists putting this all together?
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Think of it like tracking a baking recipe gone wrong.
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If you add a tiny bit too much salt, the cake will still taste fine.
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If you bake it for two minutes too long, it may not ruin it.
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If the kitchen's a couple of degrees too humid, nothing may happen.
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None of those variables on their own ruin the batch, but when you add too much salt,
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then you over bake it and you're dealing with high humidity all at once, you get a completely
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different ruined result.
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Climate science tracks data the same way.
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One weird warm month or an isolated dry spell isn't a disaster, but when every single
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metric starts shifting in the same direction at the same time, it reveals a clear undeniable
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trend.
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No scientist reaches a conclusion because of one hot month or a melting glacier or one
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hurricane or one drought.
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Instead they're looking for consistency across many independent observations.
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So is the atmosphere warming?
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Yes.
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Are the oceans accumulating heat?
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Absolutely.
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Are glaciers losing mass in many regions around the world?
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Yes.
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Is sea ice declining over the long term?
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We have seen that.
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Are growing seasons changing?
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Absolutely.
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Are ecosystems responding?
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Yes they are.
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All of these observations are coming from different instruments, separate resource groups,
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and entirely different countries, often using completely different tracking methods, yet
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they all point to the same conclusion.
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That convergence is why climate scientists are so confident in their findings.
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There's certainly doesn't come from a single record breaking month.
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It comes from the fact that dozens of completely independent data streams are telling an
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identical story.
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Now, I'm not saying that every year is going to be warmer than the one before it.
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Natural variability exists.
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We are likely to have cooler years and cold winters.
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We're going to have places that experience above average rainfall while other struggle
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through drought.
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That's exactly what we expect in a complex climate system.
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But those year-to-year changes happen on top of a baseline.
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That's continuing to shift.
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And that's really what this month's report is showing us.
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Not simply that June 2026 was unusually warm, but that it fits into a larger pattern
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that scientists have been documenting for decades.
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It's the reason why 98% of scientists say global warming is real and humans are the cause.
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As a meteorologist, one of the things that I appreciate most about these monthly reports
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is that they remind us of just how remarkable modern science has become.
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Every day thousands of weather stations record observations, ships and drifting buoys measure
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the oceans, satellites circle the planet, monitoring everything from sea ice to vegetation,
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weather balloons sample the atmosphere.
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Scientists from around the world are sharing those observations, comparing them, and building
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an increasingly complete picture of the direction our planet is changing.
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That's an extraordinary advancement.
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Because the better we understand how Earth's systems work, the better prepared will be
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to respond to whatever the future brings.
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When we hear headlines about another warm month or another climate report, it's easy
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to focus solely on the records.
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But I hope today's episode has shown you that climate science is much more than chasing
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headlines.
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It's about patiently building a true picture of the planet, one observation at a time.
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The June 2026 report is just one chapter in that story.
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Years from now, the numbers will fluctuate, but every report helps us refine our understanding
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of how Earth's climate system is changing.
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That's what inspires me about science.
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It isn't built on a single headline, but on decades of careful observation by people who
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are working towards the same goal.
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Understanding the planet we call home.
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I'm Dr. Mac, and this has been the climate translation.
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If you have a question about the climate you've been too afraid to ask, or if you have
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a differing opinion, I want to hear from you.
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I can use your viewpoints in future episodes.
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You can reach me at theclimatetranslation at gmail.com.
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I'll see you next time.