Every summer it seems someone discovers that it gets hot. “How hot is it?” (as the crowd would ask Johnny Carson). Always the same answer: Record heat! Climate change. Thermageddon is upon us! …

I notice one new wrinkle in this week’s breathless media coverage: there are stories about record “land temperatures.” A neat trick: Since air temperatures are no longer sufficient to get us in a panic, we’re now reporting how the sun heats up the ground. It’s so hot outside you can fry an egg on a sidewalk! (I tried it once on a black asphalt surface in Las Vegas on a 110 degree day. It didn’t work. Go ahead and Google it. Like the frog in the slowly heated pot of water, this is mostly an urban legend—like a lot of climate change reporting.)

[It’s hot here in Texas, a bit hotter than last year but not outrageously so. It got to 107 degrees in central Texas yesterday and will hit it again today before declining slightly over the next week, but above-100 temps are not unusual here. Nevertheless, I am getting regular concerned queries from friends about how we’re doing in this “record heat wave.” — Ed]