July 27, 2024

Climate change is heating up the northern hemisphere with unprecedented heat, killing hundreds and destroying a city.

4 min read

Lytton hit 49.6 degrees Celsius (121.3 degrees Fahrenheit), astonishing the city of just 250 people nestled in the mountains, with temperatures typically hovering around 25 degrees in June. This past week, however, its nights have been warmer than usual, with air conditioning in one area rare and homes designed to retain heat.

Now the fire has turned most of Lytton to ashes, forcing its people and hundreds of people around them to flee.

In Russia, Moscow announced its highest temperature on June 23 at 34.8 degrees, and Siberian farmers are scrambling to keep their crops from dying from the constant heat waves. Even in the Arctic Circle, temperatures rose in the 30s. The World Meteorological Organization is trying to check The highest temperature north of the Arctic Circle A weather station in Vergoensk, Siberia, recorded 38 degrees on June 20, after which recordings began.
Visitors visit Humayun's Cemetery in New Delhi, India on a hot day on June 30 amid a heat wave.

In India, tens of thousands of people in the northwest have been affected by heat waves. The Indian Meteorological Department on Wednesday categorized cities in the capital New Delhi and its environs as experiencing “severe extreme heat”, with temperatures continuing to hover in the 40s and hovering above 7 degrees above normal. The heat, along with the late monsoon, makes life difficult for farmers in areas like the state of Rajasthan.

In Iraq, officials in several provinces, including the capital Baghdad, declared a public holiday because it was too hot to work or study after the temperature rose above 50 degrees and its electrical system collapsed.

Experts who spoke with CNN said it was difficult to pinpoint how these weather events were linked, but it was no coincidence that heat waves would hit several parts of the northern hemisphere simultaneously.

A man stands by fans spraying fog on a street in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, on June 30.

“The high-pressure systems we see in Canada and the United States are all called jet streams – a group of very strong winds that sit just above our heads, at an altitude of about 30,000 feet, where planes fly.” My.

Bentley explained that the configuration of the jet stream prevents weather systems from moving efficiently in their normal west-east orbit.

“That jet stream wave is what we call the omega block because it’s got the form of the Greek letter omega, and when it comes it’s not moving anywhere, it’s blocking it,” Bentley said. “So the structured high pressure gets stuck at the end of days or weeks, and these omegas appear in different parts of the Northern Hemisphere.”

In the United States, the same thing happened in the southwest in mid-June, breaking records in places like Mexico and Phoenix in Arizona. Two weeks later, records in Washington, Oregon and southwestern Canada were overturned and a dome of high pressure was built in the northwest.

“So we’ve seen this unprecedented temperature – the logs were smashed completely, not just by a few degrees,” Bentley said.

The scientist says this could happen by 2100 every year

There is a growing acceptance among some political leaders that climate change is a catalyst for fueling certain extreme weather events, especially heat waves and storms.

“Climate change is driving a dangerous combination of extreme heat and prolonged drought.” U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday. “We see wildfires with greater intensity, moving faster and lasting beyond the traditional months, the traditional months of the fire season.”
Hundreds of deaths have been reported across the northwest of Canada and the Pacific amid the intermittent heat wave

Scientists are working on sophisticated tools that can quickly estimate how much climate change may have contributed to a particular weather event.

“What is the role of climate change?” We did a quick attribute study to get some quick answers to that, “said Nicos Christidis, a meteorologist with the UK Meteorological Office, who is developing simulations to carry out such analyzes.

“Without human influence, we have found that it is almost impossible to achieve a new record in the region and such a hot June,” he said, referring to an area including victims in Canada and the United States.

Christidis said that in the past, without man-made climate change, extreme temperatures would have occurred in the northwestern United States or southwestern Canada “once every tens of thousands of years.” Currently, this can happen more than every 15 years, Christidis said.

What if greenhouse gas emissions continue? Christidis said often every year or two at the beginning of the century.

Many countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, have recently increased their obligations – some long distance – but many scientists and activists say pre-industrial conditions have not yet gone far enough to keep global average temperatures above 1.5C. World leaders pledged at the 2015 Paris Agreement that the limit would be aimed at preventing the catastrophic effects of climate change.

Climate groups have called for an increase in Canada’s obligations to handle oil and gas.

“It’s really the worst weather for the U.S. Pacific Northwest and Southwest Canada region. .

“Canada is experiencing historic climate-induced losses and damage, while not doing its fair share of dangerous climate change. As an oil and gas producer, Canada is still considering expanding fossil fuels, which is a direct cause of global warming.”

CNN’s Anna Chernova contributed to the report in Moscow and Manveena Suri from New Delhi.

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