Energy

It's 122 Degrees at the Hottest Place in the World

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: July 16, 2022 9:30 am

Last Updated: July 18, 2022 6:25 am

Despite the fact that some people question the existence of global warming, the world gets hotter almost every year. The year 2020 was one of the three hottest in history. The year 2021 ranked sixth in temperature since data began to be collected.

The primary reason for the temperature increase is man-made. The NOAA recently pointed out that “Today, our activities—burning fossil fuels and clearing forests—add about 11 billion metric tons of carbon (equivalent to a little over 40 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide) to the atmosphere each year.”

Heat in the U.S. has been unusually high recently. Temperatures can rise above 110 degrees F in large cities which include Phoenix and Las Vegas. Temperatures can stay above 90 degrees F for weeks at a time in Phoenix.

The hottest places in the world are not in America. Usually, they are in parts of India, the Middle East, or the northern tier of Africa. In the regions, daytime temperatures can be above 120 degrees F.

Today, the hottest place in the world is Omidiyeh, Iran. As a matter of fact, four of the five hottest places in the world today are in that country.

Omidieh has a population of nearly 70,000 people. It is northeast of Kuwait in a path that runs just north of the Persian Gulf. The average high monthly temperature from May to September is over 100 degrees F. There is rarely any rain at all over the same period.

Despite the fact that Omidieh usually has high temperatures, the recent period has been worse than normal. According to The Washington Post: “Temperatures in the Middle East have topped 125 degrees after a run of record-breaking heat. Several countries tied or challenged national records amid the blistering heat wave, which has brought a string of temperatures about 15 degrees above normal to the already baked region.” And, climate scientists believe this will get worse.

The extreme heat in Iran has raised a question discussed for several years. Will some of the cities become uninhabitable? The answer appears to be “yes.”