Scorching heat and massive floods have taken the world by storm this week, plunging millions of people around the world into dangerous and deadly conditions. But it’s not a temporary trip of bad luck: it’s becoming the new norm.
Heat waves that cause record temperatures, storms that dump record rainfall on cities and wildfires that are burning through thousands of hectares of land are all the impact of one undeniable source: climate change.
Just last week, preliminary data showed that the world had hottest week on recordafter the hottest June on record. The kid It is believed to have generated the latest events as they occur at the onset of warmer sea surface temperatures, but experts have warned that the current situation will not suddenly disappear when El Niño emerges.
“We are in uncharted territory and we can expect more records to fall as El Niño develops further and these impacts extend into 2024,” said Christopher Hewitt, head of international climate services at the World Meteorological Organization . “This is worrying news for the planet.”
In a news release On Thursday, the WMO highlighted issues that included heat waves causing sweltering conditions in areas around the US to North Africa.
WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in the press release: “Extreme weather, an increasingly common occurrence in our warming climate, is having a major impact on human health, ecosystems , economies, agriculture, energy and water supplies.” This underscores the growing urgency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as quickly and deeply as possible.”
Here’s what the world has faced in recent days.
Dangerous heat waves around the world
Storms are one of the deadliest hazards arising from extreme weather conditions and are occurring on a global scale.
The southwestern United States has been battling extreme heat for days, and as of Friday, the National Meteorological Service predicts the “dangerous heat wave” will continue. At least 93 million people in the United States are under extreme heat warnings and advisories Friday morning as intense heat continues its stretch from the West Coast to the Gulf Coast, the agency said.
The Southwest will experience high temperatures exceeding 120 degrees Fahrenheit in some parts, while Texas and Louisiana could see temperatures as high as 115 degrees Fahrenheit, the agency said.
And Death Valley, which holds the world record for the higher air temperature ever measured, it is expected to see temperatures close to this temperature. The record occurred on July 10, 1913, reaching 134 degrees Fahrenheit. This weekend, it could reach 130 degrees Fahrenheit, The Weather Channel’s Stephanie Abrams said Friday, seeing a low of about 100 degrees.
“This kind of heat will continue for at least next week,” the forecaster said. “Preliminary daily data shows that we surpassed the hottest global average temperature on July 3 and have been above that value every day since, setting a new record on July 6.”
Flagstaff, Arizona is also nearing a record high, with the NWS expecting it to reach 95 degrees on Sunday, just 2 degrees shy of its all-time high in 1973.
But extreme heat isn’t limited to the US: Europe has faced its own battle.
Records were broken in France, Switzerland, Germany and Spain, the European Union’s Earth observation service Copernicus said earlier this week. On Tuesday, satellite images determined that some areas of Spain saw land surface temperatures, which measure the temperature of the soil, exceeding 60 degrees Celsius – 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-3 images
Spain’s State Meteorological Agency shared on Friday that some parts of the country could reach 42 degrees Celsius (more than 107 degrees Fahrenheit). On Thursday, it was even hotter, reaching 44.9 degrees Celsius The town of Sant Nicolau.
And it’s not over yet. Over the next two weeks, the WMO said above-normal temperatures are expected across the Mediterranean, with weekly temperatures up to 5 degrees Celsius above the long-term average.
Canada’s wildfires continue their record season
Just seven months into 2023, Canada has already faced more than 4,000 wildfires that have burned 9.6 million hectares of land, more than 37,000 square miles. As of Thursday, the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center reported 906 active fires across the country, more than half of which are considered “out of control”.
On July 6, the Canadian government said this season “has already been Canada’s worst on record.”
BC Wildfire Service/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
“Current projections indicate that this may continue to be a very difficult summer for wildfires in parts of the country,” officials said, as projections continue to show “above normal fire activity” is possible in most of the country. Warm temperatures and continued drought are to blame, they said.
Deadly and record monsoon
India has been flooded with one Southwest Monsoon which covered the entire country on July 2, the India Meteorological Department said. Last week, the country’s capital, New Delhi, was hit with the the highest rainy day in 40 years, getting half a foot of rain in a single day. Floods and landslides triggered by the rain have killed dozens across the country.
Water from the capital’s Yamuna river has spilled over the riverbank this week the water level reached a 45-year high on Thursday at 684 feet. The previous record of 681 feet was set in 1978. The record rain and water prompted officials to ask the 30 million people who live there to stay indoors.
Friday, flash flood threats it continued to varying degrees in many areas of the country.
ARUN SANKAR/AFP via Getty Images
Record heat in the world’s oceans
Copernicus said on Friday that not only the earth and air experience extreme heat, but also the oceans. The service found that the North Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea have experienced record temperatures in recent months.
Citing the Mercator Ocean research institute and its own observations, the service said the western Mediterranean is experiencing a “moderate” heat wave that “appears to be intensifying”.
“The sea surface temperature anomaly along the coasts of southern Spain and northern Africa was approximately +5°C above the reference value for the period, indicative of escalating of heat wave conditions,” Copernicus said on Friday.
European Union, Copernicus Marine Service Data
The data comes just a few months after researchers found that the oceans have warmed so quickly, an amount equal to the energy of five atomic bombs detonating underwater “every second 24 hours a day all year round”. It also comes just days after climate experts issued another warning that ocean temperatures have affected unprecedented levels which are “much higher than anything the models predict.”
By September, NOAA believes half the world’s oceans could be experiencing heat waves. Typically, only about 10 percent of the oceans experience these conditions, experts say.
The future of extremes is now the present
The future of extreme weather that has the potential to devastate billions of people is no longer a distant possibility. It’s happening here and now.
A wide range of experts, from global agencies to national organizations and individual climate experts, have been warning for decades about the impact that warming global temperatures could have on the state of the planet. As temperatures continue to rise worldwide, largely due to the burning of fossil fuels, extreme weather will only intensify.
The impact of these extremes is hard to miss.
Major cities like Chicago are seeing such warm ground temperatures because of the rising air temperature that is causing buildings to collapse as underground materials are moved. The heat also has deadly consequences, and officials around the world are warning people avoid prolonged periods of exposure. Extreme storms swept through the Northeast last weekend it left the cities totally isolated of the flood waters and businesses and homes completely destroyed. The smoke from Canada’s wildfires has had harsh ramifications for air quality across the US, even reaching Europe.
“It’s getting worse,” Hannah Cloke, a climate scientist and professor at Reading University, told Reuters that the way to prevent extreme weather from getting even worse is by dramatically and quickly reducing greenhouse gases . Greenhouse gases, emitted primarily from the burning of fossil fuels, work to trap heat in the atmosphere, amplifying global temperatures.
But it’s important to realize, he added, that doing so will only avoid the absolute worst outcomes.
“We have to realize that we’re locked into some of these changes now and we’re going to continue to see broken records,” he said.
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