Record-breaking heat bakes US, Europe, China
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Extreme heat advisories have been issued for more than 100 million Americans.
PHOTO: AFP
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WASHINGTON - Summer has just begun in the Northern Hemisphere, but a brutal heatwave is already gripping parts of Europe, China and the United States, where record temperatures expected this weekend are a stark illustration of the dangers of a warming climate.
Extreme heat advisories have been issued for more than 100 million Americans, with the National Weather Service forecasting particularly dangerous conditions in the states of Arizona, California, Nevada and Texas.
At the same time, several European nations, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland, are baking in searing temperatures.
North Africa has also been sweltering and the Moroccan meteorological service issued an extreme heat red alert for southern parts of the country.
Some regions of China, including the capital Beijing, are also experiencing sweltering temperatures
Last month was already the hottest June on record,
Extreme weather resulting from a warming climate is “unfortunately becoming the new normal”, warns Secretary-General Petteri Taalas of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
Excessive heat is one of the deadliest meteorological events, according to the WMO. One recent study estimates over 61,000 people died from heat during Europe’s record-breaking summer in 2022.
A contributing factor to the higher temperatures in 2023 may be the climate pattern known as El Nino. El Nino events, which occur every two to seven years, are marked by warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific near the Equator, and last about nine to 12 months.
North America has already seen a series of extreme meteorological events this summer, with smoke from wildfires that continue to burn out of control in Canada causing extraordinary air pollution across large parts of the US.
The US north-east, particularly Vermont, has also recently been pummelled by torrential rains which have caused devastating floods.
According to climate scientists, global warming can cause heavier and more frequent rainfall.
Meanwhile, residents of much of the southern US have been experiencing unrelenting high temperatures for weeks.
Dr Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the temperature in Death Valley could equal or surpass the record for the hottest air temperature ever reliably measured on Earth.
The WMO’s official record is 56.7 deg C recorded in Death Valley, in the southern California desert. But that was measured in 1913 and Dr Swain stands by the figure of 54.4 deg C from 2020 and 2021.
The oceans have not been spared from the warm early summer either.
People walk on a street as they shield themselves from the sun, amid a heatwave alert in Shanghai, China, on July 11, 2023.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Water temperatures off the southern coast of Florida have surpassed 32 deg C, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
As for the Mediterranean, surface temperatures will be “exceptionally high” over the coming days and weeks, the WMO said, exceeding 30 deg C in some parts, several degrees above average.
Warming ocean temperatures can have devastating consequences for aquatic life both in terms of survival and migration and can also negatively impact the fishing industry.
At the other end of the planet, Antarctic sea ice hit its lowest recorded level for a month of June.
The world has warmed an average of nearly 1.2 deg C since the mid-1800s, unleashing more intense heatwaves, more severe droughts in some areas and storms made fiercer by rising seas.
The WMO’s Mr Taalas said the current heatwave “underlines the increasing urgency of cutting greenhouse gas emissions as quickly and as deeply as possible”. AFP
