By Gloria Dickie
LONDON (Reuters) – As the Northern Hemisphere celebrates the first day of summer, deadly heatwaves are scorching cities on four continents; It’s a sign that climate change could help boost record-breaking temperatures again this past summer, which could surpass the hottest summer in 2,000 years.
Record temperatures in recent days are suspected to have caused hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths in Asia and Europe.
Nearly two million Muslim pilgrims in Saudi Arabia are completing their hajj at the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca this week. But according to reports from foreign authorities, hundreds of people died during the journey in temperatures above 51 degrees Celsius (124 degrees Fahrenheit).
Egyptian health and security sources told Reuters on Thursday that at least 530 Egyptians died during the turnout; As of yesterday, this number was 307. 40 more people are missing.
Countries around the Mediterranean, from Portugal to Greece and along the northern coast of Africa, suffered another week of high temperatures that contributed to wildfires in Algeria, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth Observatory.
In Serbia, meteorologists predict temperatures will be around 40 C (104 F) this week as winds from North Africa lead to a warm front in the Balkans. Health officials issued a red weather alert and advised people not to go out.
Belgrade’s emergency room said its doctors intervened 109 times throughout the night to treat people with heart and chronic health problems.
In neighboring Montenegro, where health officials warned people to stay in the shade until the afternoon, tens of thousands of tourists wanted to cool off on the beaches on the Adriatic coast.
This year, Europe is grappling with a large number of dead and missing tourists amid dangerous heat. A 55-year-old American was found dead on the Greek island of Mathraki, police said Monday; This was the third such tourist death in a week.
The U.S. Northeast and Midwest are also wilting under a heat dome, with more than 86 million people under heat alert as of Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.
A heat dome forms when a powerful, high-pressure system traps warm air over an area, preventing cold air from entering, causing ground temperatures to remain high.
New York City said it will open cooling centers for the first time this year as part of its heat-related emergency plan.
Weather officials also issued an extreme heat warning for parts of the US state of Arizona, including Phoenix, on Thursday, with temperatures expected to reach 45.5 C (114 F).
In the nearby state of New Mexico, fast-moving wildfires fueled by scorching heat have killed two people, burned more than 23,000 acres and destroyed 500 homes, according to officials. Heavy rains can help extinguish fires, but Thursday’s thunderstorms were also causing flash flooding and complicating firefighting efforts.
Tropical Storm Alberto, the first storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, made landfall near Tampico, Mexico, on Thursday and was responsible for three deaths, all children. The weakening storm was expected to produce flooding along the northeastern Mexico and Texas coastlines as it moved inland.
COUNTING THE DEAD
India’s summer period lasts from March to May, when monsoon rains begin to slowly spread across the country and break the heat.
But on Wednesday, New Delhi recorded its hottest night in at least 55 years, with India’s Safdarjung Observatory reporting a temperature of 35.2 C (95.4 F) at 1 am.
Temperatures normally drop at night, but scientists say climate change is causing night temperatures to rise. According to a 2020 study by the University of Exeter, nights are warming faster than days in many parts of the world.
New Delhi has had 38 consecutive days with maximum temperatures at or above 40 C (104 F) since May 14, according to weather department data.
There were more than 40,000 suspected cases of heatstroke and at least 110 confirmed deaths between March 1 and June 18, an official with India’s health ministry said on Wednesday. During this period, northwestern and eastern India recorded twice as many heatwave days as normal in one of the country’s longest heatwaves. such spells.
However, it is difficult to determine the exact number of deaths from heat waves. Most health authorities attribute the deaths not to heat but to diseases such as cardiovascular problems exacerbated by high temperatures. That’s why officials are undercounting heat-related deaths by a significant margin; often overlooking thousands, if not tens of thousands, of deaths.
RECORD HOT TEMPERATURES
Heatwaves occur in the 12 consecutive months that are the warmest on record in annual comparisons, according to the European Union’s climate change monitoring service.
The World Meteorological Organization says there is an 86 percent chance that one of the next five years will be the hottest year in history, eclipsing 2023.
As overall global temperatures rise approximately 1.3 C (2.3 F) above pre-industrial levels, climate change is fueling more extreme temperature peaks, making heat waves more common, more intense and longer-lasting.
According to an international team of scientists with the World Weather Attribution, on the global average, a heat wave that occurred once every 10 years in the pre-industrial climate will now occur 2.8 times per 10 years, with weather warming 1.2 times per 10 years. C will be warmer (WWA) group.
Heat waves will continue to intensify if the world continues to release climate-warming emissions from burning fossil fuels, scientists say.
According to WWA, if the world experienced 2 C (3.6 F) of global warming, heat waves would occur an average of 5.6 times per 10 years and would be 2.6 C (4.7 F) warmer.
(Reporting by Gloria Dickie in London; additional reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic in Belgrade, Pesha Magid in Riyadh, Shivam Patel in Delhi, Ahmed Mohamed Hassan in Cairo, Ali Withers in Copenhagen and Joseph Ax in New York; Edited by Mark Heinrich and Josie Kao)