People enjoy the coolness at the beach at Coney Island in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
Washington:
Summer has just begun in the Northern Hemisphere, but a severe heat wave is already gripping parts of Europe, China and the United States, where record temperatures are expected this weekend, setting the record for the hottest A clear example of the dangers of a changing climate.
Extreme heat advisories have been issued for more than 100 million Americans and the National Weather Service predicted particularly dangerous conditions in Arizona, California, Nevada and Texas.
At the same time, several European countries including France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland are also braving extreme temperatures.
The European Space Agency said the mercury on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia could rise to 48 °C (118.4 °F) – “possibly the hottest temperature ever recorded in Europe.”
North Africa is also experiencing extreme heat and the Moroccan Meteorological Service has issued a red extreme heat alert for southern parts of the country.
Some regions of China, including the capital Beijing, are still braving extreme temperatures and a major Chinese power company said its one-day power output reached a record high on Monday.
Last month was already the warmest June on record, according to the US space agency NASA and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Peteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), has warned that extreme weather caused by a warming climate is “sadly becoming the new normal”.
According to WMO, extreme heat is one of the deadliest meteorological phenomena. A recent study estimated that more than 61,000 people died of heatstroke during Europe’s record-breaking heat last year.
– Death Valley –
A contributing factor to the higher temperatures this year may be a climate pattern known as El Niño.
El Niño 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 for about nine to 12 months.
North America has already seen a series of extreme weather events this summer, with smoke from wildfires in Canada spiraling out of control, causing extraordinary air pollution across large parts of the United States.
The Northeast region of the US, especially Vermont, has also recently been hit by torrential rains that have caused devastating flooding.
According to climate scientists, global warming may cause heavier and more frequent rainfall.
Meanwhile, residents of much of the southern United States have been experiencing consistently high temperatures for weeks.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Death Valley’s temperature could equal or exceed the record for the hottest air temperature ever measured on Earth.
The official WMO record is 56.7C (134F) recorded in Death Valley in the Southern California desert. But it was measured in 1913 and SWAN stands by the 2020 and 2021 figure of 54.4C (130F).
– ‘Exceptionally high’ –
The oceans are also not spared from the early summer heat.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, water temperatures have exceeded 32C (90F) off the southern coast of Florida.
The WMO said that as far as the Mediterranean Sea is concerned, surface temperatures will be “extraordinarily high” in the coming days and weeks, exceeding 30C (86F) in some parts, several degrees above average .
Rising ocean temperatures could have devastating consequences for aquatic life, both in terms of survival and migration, and could also have a negative impact on the fishing industry.
On the other side of the planet, Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest level ever recorded in the month of June.
The world has warmed an average of about 1.2C (1.9F) since the mid-1800s, leading to more intense heat waves, more severe droughts in some regions and rising seas making storms more severe.
The WMO’s Talas said the current heat wave “underscores the growing urgency of cutting greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV Staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)