Dozens of heat records have been set in Siberia, with temperatures soaring above 37.7C.
Despite it being only the beginning of June, records are falling in parts of Siberia as extreme heat moves to higher latitudes.
Last Saturday, temperatures reached 37.9ºC in Jalturovosk, recording the hottest day in history, according to climatologist Maximiliano Herrera, who monitors extreme temperatures around the world.
Some of these stations have between five and seven decades of temperature records, Herrera told CNN . “Therefore, we can say that it is really exceptional.” It is the region’s “worst heat wave in history”.
It looks like the situation is going to get even worse. “Records continue to fall today with temperatures again around 40ºC,” Herrera told CNN .
A scientific analysis can be done to assess how much climate change is influencing this event, but what is known is that global warming is causing more extreme temperatures, especially at higher latitudes.
A particularly intense and prolonged heat wave in 2020, which saw the Siberian Arctic city of Verkhoyansk at 38C, would have been “nearly impossible” without man-made climate change, according to an analysis by a team of international scientists.
Siberia tends to have large monthly and annual fluctuations in temperature, but in recent decades there has been a strong warming trend.
“Siberia is one of the fastest warming regions on the planet, with hot extremes increasing in intensity,” said Omar Baddour, head of climate monitoring and policy services at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
The region “has seen some very intense heatwaves,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
“These heatwaves have major implications for people and nature and will continue to happen more frequently unless we rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” she told CNN .
As the wildfire season settles into the Northern Hemisphere, Siberia – along with Canada – is also facing significant and intense wildfires. And extreme heat is likely to make wildfires worse.
It’s not just Siberia that has seen record heat this week. In early April, Turkmenistan in Asia recorded temperatures of 42C, which was “a world record for that latitude,” Herrera said. Since then, the heat in the region has not stopped.
On Wednesday, temperatures of over 45°C were recorded in China, 43°C in Uzbekistan and 41°C in Kazakhstan. It is “a historic heat wave, which is rewriting the world’s climate history,” added Herrera.
Source: CNN Brasil
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