San Miguel, El Salvador, captured from the International Space Station on Sept. 16, 2023, by ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen during his Huginn Mission.

Following weeks of heat waves and fires, torrential rains unleashed widespread flooding in Central Greece in early September 2023.

Land surface temperatures around Vienna, Austria, on July 14, 2023 were recorded by NASA’s Ecostress instrument, which is carried on the International Space Station. 

A fast-moving wildfire devastated the historic town of Lahaina on Maui, Hawaii’s second-largest island. 

On July 10, 2023, a volcano some 30 kilometers from Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, erupted following heightened seismic activity in the area.

Air temperature, given in our daily weather forecasts, is a measure of how hot the air is above the ground. Land-surface temperature instead is a measure of how hot the actual surface would feel to the touch. 

Recent wildfires have ravaged Canada, with hundreds of reported incidents. Many of these wildfires remain uncontained, revealing the limitations of existing suppression strategies when confronted with unprecedented conditions.

The peninsula extends about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the mainland of southern Massachusetts where it serves as a natural land barrier between Cape Cod Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. 

Adding to the grim list of record ice losses, record air temperatures and record droughts, which have all hit the headlines recently, the temperature of the surface waters of our oceans is also at an all-time high.

Popocatépetl is one of Mexico’s most active volcanoes. During the mountain’s current period of eruption, ongoing since 2005, volcanic emissions frequently billow from its summit crater.