Everything indicates that this will be the hottest year in the historical series, says meteorologist

“Everything indicates that this will be the hottest year in history on the globe,” said Giovanni Dolif, meteorologist and researcher at the National Center for Monitoring and Alerts of Natural Disasters (Cemaden), to CNN .

The month of July 2023 is considered the hottest month ever recorded on planet Earth, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service of the European Union (EU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The meteorologist points out two factors that could explain why so many heat waves have been recorded this year: the El Niño phenomenon and climate change.

Dolif explained that El Niño warms the ocean waters and, as a result, forces hot air to rise in these areas. “If the air rose somewhere, it will have to come down somewhere else,” he added.

This movement causes masses of hot, dry air to descend in the North of the country, affecting temperatures throughout Brazil, in addition to favoring the occurrence of rain in the South region.

“We are already coming off a warmer winter in Brazil. The heat waves caused by El Niño oscillations cause us to reach historic temperature records,” he said.

For Dolif, we should continue to see fluctuations in global temperatures, but in the long term they tend to rise.

Weekend may have storms

Dolif said the heat wave is expected to remain stronger until the end of this week, when heavy rains may occur.

“The weekend will be a time of transition, and whenever there is a transition there are strong storms, especially in the Southeast and part of the Midwest,” he said.

As long as temperatures remain high this week, heavy rains should continue in the South region, but from the weekend onwards they should come to the Southeast, according to the meteorologist.

Almost half of the country’s cities under danger alert

The National Institute of Meteorology (Inmet) warned that 15 states and the Federal District are in great danger of a strong heat wave until Friday (17). The phenomenon is expected to increase average temperatures by 5º C in the period, which includes the Proclamation of the Republic holiday, on Wednesday (15).

Almost half of Brazil’s 5,568 municipalities are affected by heat: 2,707. In the morning, the alert covered around 1,100 cities.

Source: CNN Brasil

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