Record Temperatures of 2012 | Summer Heat Records

So far 2012 is the hottest year on record in the United States, and daily temperature records have been broken all across the country as heat waves and drought — both predicted outcomes of global warming — grip the nation. LiveScience's new Heat Index blog launched July 30 tracks temperature records and extreme weather news until the heat is off.

Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2012:

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—The area now in "exceptional" drought conditions is larger than the state of California, according to the Weather Channel. States in exceptional drought include: 63 percent of Kansas, including Topeka; 53 percent of Arkansas, including Little Rock; 39 percent of Oklahoma, including Okla. City and Tulsa; 36 percent of Missouri, including Kansas City; 23 percent of Nebraska, the Weather Channel reports.

—Researchers from the University of Washington's Polar Science Center have included new NASA sea-ice-thickness data in their estimate for this year's Arctic sea-ice minimum. The new forecast: about 1.7 million square miles (4.4 million square kilometers) of remaining ice, just above the lowest minimum on record, estimated at 1.59 million square miles (4.2 million square km), according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Scientists have attributed the unprecedented lows in Arctic sea ice in recent years partly to man-made global warming.

—Throughout this week, drought has continued to intensify over parts of the central United States, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor map released Thursday (Aug. 9). "This week, we saw extreme (D3) and exceptional (D4) drought continue to expand or intensify over parts of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Illinois," said Brian Fuchs, a climatologist and U.S. Drought Monitor author at the National Drought Mitigation Center. "New Mexico has also seen some degradation, and D4 drought has been introduced from east central Kansas to west central Missouri."

—LA is feeling the heat: "The National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat warning through Friday for several spots in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, including mountain ranges and valleys, with triple-digit heat projected in much of the region," states the LA Times online. Reportedly, the scorching heat wave and power-plant failures have spurred a statewide flex alert to conserve energy Friday (Aug. 10) through Sunday, asking consumers "to set air conditioning at 78 degrees or higher or turn it off while away from home, turn off unnecessary lights and appliances and restrict use of major appliances to the morning and late evening."

—Climate Central reports there have been more record highs in the United States this year so far than all of 2011. "There are now more daily record high reports (27,042) for 2012 than for all of 2011 (26,674), and it's only early August," said senior meteorologist of the Weather Channel Guy Walton. According to Climate Central's Andrew Freedman, record daily high temperatures outnumbered record daily lows by a ratio of about 10-to-1. "Climate research indicates that over longer timescales, these ratios are increasingly favoring warm records as well," Freedman writes, adding that a 2009 study found that rather than a one-to-one ratio that would be expected without global warming, the ratio was closer to two-to-one during the decade 2000-2009.

—This year is on pace to break some heat records, and just today a new report finds the Northeast's seven-month average (from January through July) of 49.9 degrees F was the warmest such period since 1895, when such record-keeping began, according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University. Delaware saw its driest January-July since 1895, while it was the fifth driest in Maryland.

—The drought and heat scorching much of the U.S. are taking a toll on Midwest rivers, where tens of thousands of fish are reported to have died last week. In Iowa, more than 40,000 shovelnose sturgeon have succombed to the sizzling 97-degree-F water temperatures; in Nebraska's Lower Platte River, the Associated Press reports thousands of sturgeon, catfish and carp, including the endangered pallid sturgeon have died; and in Illinois, the hot weather is linked to the deaths of tens of thousands of largemouth and smallmouth bass and channelfish, the AP reports.

—At least one business in Wichita, Kan., is suffering amid 29 days with temperatures at above 100 degrees F this summer, according to The Wichita Eagle. "Our afternoons are like a ghost town," said Tom Smith, general manager of All Star Adventures, which includes an amusement park. The story reports that car sales this summer are up, however, and at one local golf course, golfers are still turning out, they're just starting earlier.

—"All-time record high from the Dust Bowl is in jeopardy today in Okla. City," tweeted the Weather Channel this morning, referring to Tulsa, Okla., which posted a searing 112 degrees F on Tuesday and Wednesday. The only other times Oklahoma's second-largest city has reached or exceeded such temperatures were two August days in 2011 and before that in 1936, during the Dust Bowl summer. [Read more on the Weather Channel]

—Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today "signed disaster designations for an additional 218 counties in 12 states as primary natural disaster areas due to damage and losses caused by drought and excessive heat," according to a USDA statement. The states include: Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming. Some 50.3 percent of all U.S. counties have been designated as disaster areas by the USDA this year, mainly because of drought. [Read more on the drought disaster areas]

— "Unusually hot weather has kept potential donors from venturing out," according to the American Red Cross, which reported blood donations dropped to the lowest in 15 years, according to NBCNews.com's Body Odd column. The decline is expected with the Red Cross' biggest blood supplier, students, out on break; but the power outages and storms have meant both more demand and more blood drives being cancelled. The hot weather sealed the deal, keeping people indoors where it's cool.

— Arctic "sea ice cover continues to decline at a rapid pace, and is currently on par with where the 2007 record melt season stood at the same time of year," writes Andrew Freedman on a Climate Central blog today, noting the melt season (when Arctic sea ice declines due to warmer temperatures every year) has about a month and a half to go. The Arctic melt season began earlier than normal, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, with low levels throughout July. A new study detailed online July 26 in the journal Environmental Research Letters suggests man-made global warming "is the most plausible explanation" for the decline in Arctic sea ice seen since satellite measurements began in 1979.

July 27, 2012: Temperatures in June and the first week of July qualified this summer so far as one of the top-three hottest summers in the continental United States since 1950, said Bob Smerbeck, a senior meteorologist at Accuweather.com. What's responsible? The jet stream, a band of high-altitude westerly winds, plays a role by acting as a boundary between cool, northern air and warmer southern air. It was situated over northern California, then across the northern plains near the Canadian border before dipping southeast over the northeastern part of the country in late July.

Aug. 2, 2011: July 2011 brought oppressive heat to much of the country, with all 50 states setting high temperature records. Climate scientists say that such heat waves will be the norm in the future if climate change continues unabated, but experts say it will take more summers as hot as this one to shift the climate-change debate. For one, by winter many will have forgotten the scorcher of a summer.

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