Heat waves on several continents broke records, threatened public health and crippled infrastructure, in what scientists say are signs of the impact of the day-to-day climate crisis.
Americans are used to turning on their air conditioners at any time in temperatures approaching 27°C. But in the UK, this week’s record heat has brought life to a pandemic standstill.
Temperatures in the UK surpassed 40°C for the first time on Tuesday, making it the hottest day on record in the country.
In the United States, a third of the population was under heat-related weather alerts on Tuesday and Wednesday, with temperatures predicted to rise to around 43°C in the lowlands states.
Looking at the cause of these heat extremes in the US and Europe, there are different systems at play.
In Europe, a strong ridge of high pressure has allowed temperatures to rise on the continent in recent days. On Tuesday, an area of low pressure was moving off the coast, acting to help funnel extreme heat north to the UK.
In the US, a strong high pressure dome has settled over the Southern Plains and Mississippi Valley. Instead of the heat being channeled from the south, it is growing steadily as the sun warms across the cloudless sky.
The connecting fabric between these heat waves is the influence of greenhouse gas emissions and the planet’s increasingly warm base temperature.
UK Met Office Chief Scientist Stephen Belcher was in a state of disbelief as he made a video statement about the shocking temperatures the country recorded on Tuesday, noting that it would be “virtually impossible” for the UK to “uninterrupted climate”.
“But climate change caused by greenhouse gases made those temperatures possible, and we’re really seeing that possibility now,” he said, adding that if the world continues to emit greenhouse gases at the level it is at now, these heat waves will likely take place there every three years.
Forty degrees Celsius isn’t that hot for someone sitting in the center of the US, Australia, the Middle East or Northern India. In the UK, the heat has forced working from home and remote teaching. Authorities have told people not to take trains, which are dangerous on hot tracks that expand and bend in the heat.
In other words, don’t leave the house.
But in the UK, which is more likely to struggle with the cold than the heat, houses are also designed to keep warm. Table fans are running out across the country, but they have limited effectiveness.
The weather so unnerved Britons that mismanagement of the heat became the latest criticism leveled at Prime Minister Boris Johnson – seen as yet another example of the disgraced leader’s failures.
“The all-time temperature record for the UK has not just been broken, it has been absolutely obliterated,” said Hannah Cloke, a natural hazards researcher at the University of Reading. “The 39 degrees Celsius mark will never exist as a UK temperature record because we’ve just passed 40 degrees in a single sweaty jump.”
The UK is woefully unprepared for the impacts of the climate crisis. It strives to manage floods when they occur. In the heat, the nation gives in.
So many fires broke out in London on Tuesday that city firefighters declared a “serious incident” and were overwhelmed beyond their capacity. Four people drowned as people flocked to beaches, rivers and lakes just to try to cool off. Even a runway at an airport outside London had to be closed because it melted in the heat.
In southern Europe, a region more accustomed to extreme heat, at least 1,100 people died in the latest heat wave, and French firefighters are overwhelmed by blazes raging through forests. At least 21 European nations are under heat-related alerts.
Americans may be more used to the heat, but heat waves are getting longer and more frequent too, which means more time indoors, or wherever the air conditioning is. No fewer than 100 million Americans — nearly a third of the nation — were under heat alerts on Tuesday.
The alerts range from the southern plains to the Mississippi and Tennessee river valleys, and there are alerts scattered throughout the Southwest. The Northeast has already issued heat warnings for the “feel” of 37.8°C for Wednesday.
The most dangerous heat is forecast in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, where excessive heat warnings are in effect for Dallas, Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Little Rock. Temperatures are expected to rise to as high as 43°C in the coming days.
Scientists working on the role the climate crisis is playing in extreme weather now say that nearly all of the world’s heat waves are influenced by humans burning fossil fuels.
Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London said it was up to the world to reach net zero – where humans emit as little greenhouse gases as possible and “offset” the rest – to stop the waves of heat become even worse, “deadly and disturbing”.
“We take action to make ourselves less vulnerable and redesign our cities, homes, schools and hospitals and educate ourselves on how to keep ourselves safe,” Otto told CNN . “40 degrees Celsius in the UK is not an act of God but largely due to our past and present burning of fossil fuels.”
In China, the annual “sanfu” — which is usually three 10-day batches in July and August, when temperatures and humidity peak — is now predicted to last an “extended period” of 40 days, the meteorologist said. state, according to Reuters.
He warned of scorching heat waves this week despite seasonal rains, with temperatures likely to rise as high as 42°C in the south from Wednesday.
In central London on Tuesday, a student named Asser, who had braved the heat, told CNN that the world wasn’t doing enough to fight the heat waves.
“Actually, the world is doing nothing. The world is burning and we’re not doing anything about it. We are just consuming, the industry is working and nobody is doing anything for the climate,” she said.
“You have heat waves in Europe, London and the US, everywhere – you can see it, it’s obvious. You have floods and wildfires and everything.”
*Angela Dewan is CNN’s International Weather Editor in London.
Sana Noor Haq, Angela Fritz, Brandon Miller and Nada Bashir of CNN contributed to this story.
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
