September’s record-setting temps were “absolutely gobsmackingly bananas”

Enlarge (credit: Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)

The global temperature numbers for September are in, and they are not good. “This month was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist—absolutely gobsmackingly bananas,” Zeke Hausfather posted Tuesday on X (formerly known as Twitter).

Kristina Dahl, principal climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, read that post yesterday. “I’ve been sitting at my desk trying to think of a better way to describe that, but I can’t,” Dahl says. “It’s just shocking.”

“Concerning, worrying, wild—whatever superlative you want to use,” says Kate Marvel, senior scientist at Project Drawdown, a nonprofit that fights climate change. “That’s what it is.”