New temperature record set as France swelters through June heatwave

France has registered its highest temperature since records began as the death toll rose from a heatwave suffocating much of Europe.

As the mercury rises, Europeans are doing all they can to beat the heat.

The mercury hit 45.9 degrees Celsius in Villevieille, in the southerly Provence region, the weather forecaster Meteo France said, almost two degrees above the previous high of 44.1 Celsius recorded in August 2003.

The World Meteorological Organisation said that 2019 was on track to be among the world's hottest years, and that 2015-2019 would then be the hottest five-year period on record.

It said the European heatwave was "absolutely consistent" with extremes linked to the impact of greenhouse gas emissions.

Read the story from ABC News -  “New temperature record set as France swelters through June heatwave.”

Little Ice Age? No. Big Warming Age? Yes

In September, a website called Space Weather Archive interviewed Martin Mlynczak of NASA’s Langley Research Center. Mlynczak noted that because the sun is currently in a relatively inactive period, the thermosphere (one of the highest layers of Earth’s atmosphere, more than 300 miles above the surface) could reach its coldest temperatures since records began in the 1940s.

Woodcut of a famous 18th-century winter in Massachusetts,
during what some have called the "Little Ice Age," for the
lack of a better term. But compared to full-blown ice ages,
it was short-lived and puny, scientists say. Image from
"History and Antiquities of New England," published 1856.
Courtesy of New York Public Library.

The interview didn’t mention Earth’s surface temperatures, where the past five years have been the five hottest since records began in the late-1800s. However, the British newspaper Metro then ran a story falsely claiming that: “It’s feared this could herald the arrival of a uniquely grim ‘mini Ice Age.’ ”

Like a bad game of Telephone, this inaccurate reporting then spread throughout the conservative media, including Fox News, the Drudge Report, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin’s Twitter page. The story was debunked by the climate scientists at Climate Feedback, and Metro subsequently issued a correction, but the damage had been done.

Read the story from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists by Dana Nuccitelli - “Little Ice Age? No. Big Warming Age? Yes.”