Despite warnings about the scorching and fiery summer of 2024, what the world is experiencing in June, with extreme heat, harshness and the loss of thousands of lives, once again shows that this year will be recorded as an unprecedented hot summer.
In Saudi Arabia, in just two days, June 15-16, nearly 600 pilgrims died while walking in the heat of 52 degrees Celsius, and so far this number of casualties has reached more than 1,300 people. In New Delhi, India, from June 11-19, 192 heat-related deaths were recorded, a record high compared to the same period in the past 5 years.
Meanwhile, South Korea also experienced its hottest June ever. In just the first 20 days of the month, the country had an average of 2.4 days of extreme heat, four times higher than the average from 1991 to 2020.
Extreme heat waves are not only occurring in Asia and the Middle East, but also in Europe and the Americas. Cities on the East Coast of the US are also dealing with record high temperatures. Baltimore and Philadelphia recorded record high temperatures of nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) on June 23. States on the West Coast also had temperatures 15 degrees Fahrenheit (39 degrees Celsius) higher than normal for this time of year.
Carlo Buontempo, director of the European Climate Change Service, Copernicus Climate Change Service, expressed concern that these heat waves will not end anytime soon, perhaps in the next few months, or even last a little longer. But this does not change the overall picture, as the average temperature over the next five years is likely to be warmer than the average temperature over the past five years. So it would not be surprising if heat records were to reappear in the future.
Many experts believe that the intense heat in many countries is due to climate change, causing the earth’s surface to become increasingly hot. Although El Nino is weakening, it always lags behind the temperature, so it also contributes to the unusually high temperature. The movement cycle of El Nino is linked to the activity of the Walker circulation, which is a moist cloud stream that develops in the West Coast of the United States, while in the East Coast of the United States, Asia, and the Indian continent, it is a downdraft area, where high pressure exists for many days, with air currents blowing from above that will prevent the formation of convective clouds that cause rain.
Meteorologists have observed that the high pressure mass that has existed in the Asian region since the beginning of the year, in May and June, has been more active than average, meaning that the downdraft is stronger, causing the intensity of the sun to increase, leading to prolonged and severe extreme heat in a series of regions such as the East Coast of the United States, India and Saudi Arabia.
#world #faces #extreme #heat
2024-07-03 20:39:25
