Fires, droughts, floods, heat waves, storms. The northern hemisphere is gradually warming up And with rising temperatures, extreme weather events are occurring more and more frequently. The European Copernicus service, which controls a large constellation of satellites dedicated to climate monitoring, said in a press release that the period between June and August of this year It was the hottest ever recorded in the world almost two centuries because in most countries of the northern hemisphere there is reliable data since the beginning of the 19th century.
The report states that average temperatures were 0.69 degrees Celsius higher than in the period 1991-2020. Heat waves, droughts and at the same time floods were mainly serious in Canada, areas near the Arctic, Russia or China. Economic losses are counted in tens of billions of dollars and hundreds of millions of people affected. Thousands died for these phenomena.
Rising temperatures are affecting millions of people in their traditional activities.
At the beginning of the European summer, hundreds of thousands of Moroccans living in Spain, France, Belgium or the Netherlands make their way back to their country to spend their holidays. In many cases, they try to extend their holidays to work there as well. But activities such as grape harvesting (Morocco does not produce wine but exports grapes to countries with a wine-growing tradition) suffer from having to work at home. daytime temperatures close to 50 degrees and nighttime temperatures exceeding 35.
The average global temperature in August was 16.82 degrees. Anyone would wear a jacket, but Considering that the southern hemisphere was in the middle of winterthe northern hemisphere averages were the highest ever recorded so that the global average was almost that of a spring month. Copernicus data also confirm that the planet has been breaking its record for average monthly temperature for 15 consecutive months, except in July, when it was within hundredths of a degree.
In Finland, north of the Balticchildren bathe on the beaches of Naantali, near the city of Turku, with water temperatures above 20 degrees, a historical anomaly.
Belgium has been around for a few years turning lakes into beachessuch as the one in Hofstade, 20 kilometres north of Brussels, to help the population cool off when in September there are still days with temperatures above 30 degrees, something that had never happened that month.
These are numbers that, if not stopped, will lead the planet to temperature increases at a speed never before recorded and caused by human activities.
If the Paris Agreement to stop the climate crisis stipulated that by the end of this century the average temperature of the globe should not exceed 1.5 degrees more than in 1990, That limit has already been exceeded in 13 of the last 14 months.with more than 75 years left to close the century.
41 degrees in Australia, in winter
Some countries seem to want to change hemispheres. Australia, in the middle of winter, experienced thermometers reaching 41 degrees on August 26, when they must have been cold.
Spain closed August with an average of 25 degrees. If we take into account that the northern regions of the country usually have mild summers and that the average night temperatures drop, 25 degrees means a whole month with half the country above 35 all day long. And two degrees more than the average from 1991 to 2020. It is the European country most affected by the climate crisis.
The Vuelta a España, the third most important cycling race in the world after the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia, which takes place between the end of August and the beginning of September, is beginning to be considered as to whether it should be postponed for a month to prevent the stars of world cycling compete at 40 degrees.
Southern Europe at least has a habit of heat. Many houses and practically all shops, bars and restaurants, They have air conditioning units. Houses are built with the idea of how to keep them cool in mind. Andalusian villages were built over centuries with very narrow streets so that the sun barely entered.
The North It’s done backwards. Es It is very rare for homes to have air conditioningmany have carpet on the floor and their design It is made to heat up as much as possible with sunlight to save on heating. Large windows that now, with Norwegian cities above 30 degrees, warm their inhabitants even more.
Meanwhile, the United States and Canada They are unable to control fires gigantic that escape the usual measurements.
The so-called ‘Park Fire’ in California burned more than 150,000 hectares in just a few hours, the equivalent of 150,000 football fields. Temperatures in California’s ‘Death Valley’ reached 53.3 degrees Celsius.
Hundreds of people died due to flooding in India, Pakistan and Nepal. Copernicus measurement systems detected that in mid-July Atlantic waters recorded their highest temperature ever recorded. The south of France is drying out with hardly any rain and the lack of snowfall from last winter is causing rivers to be at their lowest. A little over a year ago,The operation of several nuclear power plants had to be stopped because their reactors are cooled with river water and these did not carry sufficient flow.
In the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean, hurricane seasons They start earlier and earlier and last longer and longer. China has evacuated more than 400,000 people in recent days amid fears of the impact of an approaching typhoon.