(17 Jul 2023)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Death Valley National Park, California - 16 July 2023
1. People walking on platform over desert floor
HEADLINE: Brutal heatwave in California's Death Valley
2. People take picture at edge of platform next to sign reading (English): "Stop, Extreme Heat Danger"
ANNOTATION: Death Valley is seeing some of the highest temperatures ever recorded on Earth.
3. Digital thermometer that is popular with tourists
4. People posing for pictures with thermometer
ANNOTATION: On Sunday tourists came to have their photos taken as it hit 132 degrees.
5. Various of tourists posing for pictures
ANNOTATION: It's not an official reading but the tourists here could feel the heat.
6. SOUNDBITE (English) William Cadwallander, visiting from Las Vegas:
"Oh, your arms are burning. Your face is burning."
7. Sign reading (English): "Stop, Extreme Heat Danger"
8. Various of another sign reading (English): "Caution! Extreme Heat Danger"
ANNOTATION: The extreme heat comes amid a blistering stretch of hot weather.
STORYLINE:
Death Valley is seeing some of the highest temperatures ever recorded on Earth, drawing tourists who wanted to have their photos taken in the sizzling heat.
A digital thermometer that is popular with tourists hit 132 degrees at some point on Sunday.
It's not an official reading but the tourists here could feel the heat.
William Cadwallader lives in Las Vegas, where temperatures reached 116 F (46.67 C) on Sunday, nearing the all-time high of 117 degrees.
Cadwallader said he's been visiting Death Valley during the summer for years just to say he's been to the hottest place on Earth.
He described what it feels like to be outside in that extreme heat.
"Oh, your arms are burning. Your face is burning," he said.
The National Weather Service said temperatures in Death Valley, which runs along part of central California's border with Nevada, reached 128 degrees Fahrenheit (53.33 degrees Celsius) on Sunday at the aptly named Furnace Creek.
The hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth was 134 F (56.67 C) in July 1913 at Furnace Creek, said Randy Ceverny of the World Meteorological Organization, the body recognized as keeper of world records.
Temperatures at or above 130 F (54.44 C) have only been recorded on Earth a handful of times, mostly in Death Valley.
The extreme heat comes amid a blistering stretch of hot weather.
With heat records being shattered all over the world, scientists say there is a chance that 2023 will go down as the hottest year since the records started in mid 19th century. At the same time, many parts of the globe are seeing heavy rains and are hit by floods.
High temperatures are being driven by long term human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas and a naturally occurring weather pattern, El Nino.
El Nino is a temporary and occasional warming of part of the Pacific that shifts weather patterns across the globe, often by moving the airborne paths for storms.
It adds more heat to the already rising temperatures.
Scientists say that most of the record warming the Earth is now seeing is from human-caused climate change, partly because El Nino only started a few months ago and is still weak to moderate.
It isn’t expected to peak until winter, so the prediction is the next year will be even hotter than 2023.
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