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Tree rings reveal summer 2023 was the hottest in 2 millennia

May 19, 2024

A photo taken in May 2024 shows three women shielding themselves from the scorching sun with a cloth in Mumbai, India. (Image credit: SOPA Images / Contributor via Getty Images)

Last year’s summer was the hottest in 2,000 years, ancient tree rings reveal.

Researchers already knew that 2023 was one for the books, with average temperatures soaring past anything recorded since 1850. But there are no measurements stretching further back than that date, and even the available data is patchy, according to a study published Tuesday (May 14) in the journal Nature. So, to determine whether 2023 was an exceptionally hot year relative to the millennia that preceded it, the study authors turned to records kept by nature.

Trees provide a snapshot of past climates, because they are sensitive to changes in rainfall and temperature. This information is crystalized in their growth rings, which grow wider in warm, wet years than they do in cold, dry years. The scientists examined available tree-ring data dating back to the height of the Roman Empire and concluded that 2023 really was a standout, even when accounting for natural variations in climate over time.

“When you look at the long sweep of history, you can see just how dramatic recent global warming is,” co-author Ulf Büntgen, a professor of environmental systems analysis at the University of Cambridge in the U.K., said in a statement. The data indicated that “2023 was an exceptionally hot year, and this trend will continue unless we reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically,” he said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

El Nino to last two more months; 2024 could be Malaysia’s hottest year — Nik Nazmi

May 5, 2024

El Nino to last two more months; 2024 could be Malaysia’s hottest year — Nik Nazmi

KOTA BHARU (May 2): The El Nino phenomenon hitting the country is expected to continue for the next two months, said Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad.

He said his ministry and the National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) will monitor the weather transition.

According to him, forecasts indicate this year could be the country’s hottest year.

“The last time such hot weather struck the country was in 1998 in Perlis,” he told reporters after launching the Madani NRES adopted village in Kampung Aril, Melor, here on Thursday.

Nik Nazmi said Kelantan, Perlis and Kedah are experiencing higher temperatures than Selangor and Kuala Lumpur.

He said based on the report he received, the transition should have started with rain expected to come, but Malaysians are to experience hotter days for another one to two months, with the Meteorological Department monitoring the situation.

“Besides that, we will also monitor and be vigilant about haze in the country and across borders as we observe signs of peat fires,” he said.

Nik Nazmi said his ministry will join forces with the Energy Transition and Water Transformation Ministry to monitor water levels, adding that they may need to conduct a cloud seeding exercise.

The matter is under the attention of Nadma, he said.

“The cost of cloud seeding is high and depends on weather factors. Therefore, I will discuss this matter with the state government,” he added.

Nik Nazmi also advised students to drink enough water and wear appropriate attire due to the hot weather.

Increasingly Frequent Ocean Heat Waves Trigger Mass Die-Offs of Sealife, and Grief in Marine Scientists

May 5, 2024

Increasingly Frequent Ocean Heat Waves Trigger Mass Die-Offs of Sealife, and Grief in Marine Scientists

Heat waves recently extended across nearly 30 percent of the world’s oceans, an expanse equivalent to the surface area of North America, Asia, Europe and Africa.

Marine biologist Anne Hoggett records bleached and dead coral around Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia on April 5. Credit: David Gray/AFP via Getty Images

Over the past several years, the temperature of the Earth’s oceans have been spiking high enough to trigger numerous die-offs of marine species, killing millions of corals, fish, mammals, birds and plants. Those mass die-offs also have sent a wave of emotional trauma washing over some researchers watching their life’s work vanish before their eyes.

“We talk a lot about eco grief, that sense of being overwhelmed and feeling loss,” said Jennifer Lavers, who has been tracking how thousands of seabirds have starved to death during recent ocean heat waves off the coast of western Australia as coordinator of the nonprofit marine research Adrift Lab.

Right now the extreme ocean heat in her region is waning, but globally, marine heat wave conditions extend across nearly 30 percent of the planet’s oceans, a surface area equivalent to all of North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. The harms of long-term gradual ocean warming are well documented, but Lavers said the most recent studies show that increasingly frequent pulses of extreme heat are doing the most damage to marine ecosystems.

With even more mass die-offs of ocean species projected, “scientists are leaving in droves from the field,” she said. “Incredibly skilled, talented, qualified, very passionate people are leaving because no matter what they say, what they do, how many papers they publish … It doesn’t matter.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Mass fish die-off in Vietnam as heatwave roasts Southeast Asia

May 5, 2024

Mass fish die-off in Vietnam as heatwave roasts Southeast Asia

DONG NAI, Vietnam: Hundreds of thousands of fish have died in a reservoir in southern Vietnam’s Dong Nai province, with locals and media reports suggesting a brutal heatwave and the lake’s management are to blame.

Like much of Southeast Asia – where schools have recently been forced to close early and electricity usage has surged – southern and central Vietnam have been scorched by devastating heat.

“All the fish in the Song May reservoir died for lack of water,” a local resident in Trang Bom district, who identified himself only as Nghia, told AFP.

“Our life has been turned upside down over the past 10 days because of the smell.”

Pictures show residents wading and boating through the 300ha Song May reservoir, with the water barely visible under a blanket of dead marine life.

According to media reports, the area has seen no rain for weeks and the water in the reservoir is too low for the creatures to survive.

Reservoir management had previously discharged water to try to save crops downstream, Nghia said.

“They then tried to renovate the reservoir, bringing in a pump to take the mud out so that the fish would have more space and water,” he said.

However, the efforts did not work and, shortly afterwards, many of the fish died, with local media reports suggesting as many as two hundred tonnes’ worth of fish may have perished.

Dead fish and the dried-up reservoir bed caused by renovation works and the ongoing hot weather conditions in southern Vietnam’s Dong Nai province on Apr 30, 2024. (Photo: AFP/STR)

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Bangaldesh Is in the Grips of Its Longest Heatwave in 75 Years!

April 30, 2024

Bangaldesh Is in the Grips of Its Longest Heatwave in 75 Years!

Representational image (ANINDYA CHATTOPADHYAY/BCCL) — Representational image

(ANINDYA CHATTOPADHYAY/BCCL)

The authorities in Bangladesh have issued another heatwave alert for three more days from Sunday as the South Asian country is facing its longest heatwave in 75 years.

Bangladesh reported the season’s highest temperature at 42.7°C on Friday in the south-western district of Chuadanga. Dhaka’s maximum temperature was 38.2°C that day, according to Meteorological data. The blistering heat has forced the government to shut schools for a week, with hospitals preparing to receive higher numbers of patients with heat-related ailments.

The heatwave reached a 29th day on Sunday, the longest since the government started keeping records in 1948, said meteorologist Shaheenul Islam. The previously record hot spell of 23 days was recorded in 2019, according to data tracked by Bangladesh’s Meteorological Department.

“The hot spell is impacting more than 50 out of 64 administrative districts,” said Khandaker Hafizur Rahman, another meteorologist. Rahman said hot weather is likely to continue until the first week of May.

Physician Mohammad Niatuzzaman, head of state-run Mughdah Hospital in Dhaka, said his hospital received a large number of patients suffering from heatstroke, dehydration, exhaustion and respiratory problems.

Thousands of worshippers in different parts of Muslim-majority Bangladesh prayed in the past week for rain in line with an Islamic tradition.

The Impossible Heat Wave Era is Upon Us

April 29, 2024

At the end of March and into the early days of April, the Sahel region of Africa experienced an unprecedented heat wave. Extreme temperatures descended upon Guinea, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Niger, Nigeria, and Chad. One city in Mali recorded a temperature of 48.5 degrees Celsius (over 119 degrees Fahrenheit). The heat wave was impossible.

Or, it would have been impossible without the 1.2 degrees Celsius that humans have already baked into the global climate system. That’s the conclusion from scientists with World Weather Attribution, a group that makes rapid assessments of climate change’s influence on extreme weather events. They use various modeling and observational techniques to establish a “fingerprint” of warming on a given event; in this case, it simply wouldn’t have happened in a normal world.

Death tolls from heat waves often don’t become clear until months later, but there are early indications of its severity. One hospital in Mali’s capital Bamako recorded 102 deaths just between April 1st and April 4th. That same hospital recorded 130 deaths over all of April 2023. Many areas affected by the heat had power cuts at the same time, exacerbating the problem.

The otherwise-impossibility of these events is going to more or less become the norm. Most of World Weather Attribution’s results suggest increased odds, incrementally juiced temperatures, higher likelihood of that much rain, and so on. In virtually every event now (they do occasionally find that climate change had little influence), warming’s effect is clear and dramatic — but there is something viscerally different about events that would not have just been rare but literally could not have happened without the blanket of greenhouse gases humans have tucked around the planet.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Rolling Blackouts, Prolonged Heatwave, And ‘Fire-nados’ Sends California To The Brink

August 17, 2020

Rolling Blackouts, Prolonged Heatwave, And ‘Fire-nados’ Sends California To The Brink

Californians flocked to beaches, recreation areas, and lakes this past weekend to seek relief from one of the most extreme heat waves in a generation, straining the state’s power grid to the brink of collapse, reported Bloomberg.

The heatwave brought triple-digit temperatures to parts of California over the last three days and sparked concerns of fiery tornados on Saturday.

On Sunday, the National Weather Service’s (NWS) Weather Prediction Center (WPC) tweeted temperatures from Death Valley, a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, reached 130F, the first time since 1913.

Scorching temperatures were so intense, the state’s electrical grid warned of a continuous electricity supply shortage for Sunday into Monday and Tuesday.

California Independent System Operator (California ISO) had purchased additional power to prevent another rolling blackout and issued a Flex Alert, urging customers to reduce energy in the afternoons.

Severin Borenstein, a board member of the ISO and energy economist at the University of California, Berkeley, told SFGate that rolling outages are expected to continue early this week:

“There is a real concern that they would have to do it again tomorrow and Tuesday,” he said Sunday about the rolling outages.

We noted Saturday that rolling blackouts started Friday when the state’s power reserves had fallen below a critical threshold due to elevated temperatures increased demand for power. The grid issued a “Stage 3 Grid Emergency,” which triggered the “load interruption.”

The blistering heat was also a major concern for firefighters battling several wildfires in Northern California.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

California Forced Into Rolling Blackouts As Heatwave Sparks First “Stage 3” Energy Crisis In 20 Years

August 15, 2020

California Forced Into Rolling Blackouts As Heatwave Sparks First “Stage 3” Energy Crisis In 20 Years

While the rest of the country was distracted by the stimulus talks and the ongoing coronavirus situation, another deadly wildfire season has begun in California. And with the state’s prison population in the grips of an uncontrolled outbreak that has left thousands sickened and under quarantine orders – making them ineligible to fight fires – a dangerous heat wave is gripping the state, accelerating the spread of wildfires that broke out earlier this week, while also creating the state’s first “Stage 3” energy crisis in 20 years.

The relentless heat wave is expected to endure until mid-week, and is sending temperatures soaring to 110 degrees Fahrenheit, exacerbating the fire situation and forcing millions of Californians to endure rolling blackouts.

The situation is compounding Californians’ problems as a particularly dangerous time as hundreds of COVID patients depend on ventilators to breath. As officials issue warnings about energy use, strain on the grid due to air conditions and fans are threatening to cause a repeat of Friday’s rolling blackout over the weekend.

Friday’s blackout started at around 1830PT when California’s grid operator determined that the state’s power reserves had fallen below a critical threshold. The operator then called a “Stage 3 Grid Emergency”, which triggered the “load interruption” – aka the blackouts.

According to ABC News, this is the first round of “Stage 3” blackouts facing the state since the 2000-2001 energy crisis that forced the state’s largest utility – PG&E – into bankruptcy, and led to the ouster of former Gov Gray Davis. One key difference this time around is that PG&E is already in bankruptcy and pleading guilty to manslaughter.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Climate Diary of an extreme heatwave across Australia and climate heat impacts

January 4, 2019

Climate Diary of an extreme heatwave across Australia and climate heat impacts

The Bureau of Meteorology in the lead up to christmas in 2018 showed a heatwave building through the week. The forecast was for severe and extreme heatwave impacts particularly Thursday 27 December to Saturday 29 December.

A blocking high in the Tasman and strong heat from the Pilbara in Western Australia and right through Central Australia, will periodically extend tendrils of sweltering heat to encompass the major population centres of Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.

While these cities may get occasional relief from weak cold fronts and coastal sea breezes, inland towns will swelter in the scorthing heat with temperatures in the mid to high 30s and low 40s.

Graphing the Tmax trend in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and some regional towns

Heatwave climate diary

December 22 – Initial Warning
December 23 – UK Met Office takes note, VicHealth issues heathealth alerts
December 24 – No report as travelling
December 25 – Hot christmas for Sydney, Climate scientists says this is the face of climate change
December 26 – Marble Bar feeling the heat, SBS story on Heat health, South African heatwave, Was it hot on Boxing Day?
December 27 – Heatwave spans 5 states with 49C forecast, Climate Council heatwave and Heathealth reports, hot in Sydney, bloody hot in Adelaide, 5 years of climate inaction, Melbourne Temps hit 40C, Tennant Creek smashes record, Emus seek heat respite in sea
December 28 – Catastrophic fire warning in South Australia, Surface temperatures soar, heat records fall in several SA towns, South African heatwave finishes
December 29 – Slow roasting Australia, Cruel increase in night time temps in Albury, warning about taking fur buddies for a walk, Thongs and roads melting in Sydney while NSW inland records fall, Heat in Canberra, Alice Springs sets all time heat record, historical heat deaths stats, New extreme heat policy by Tennis Australia, AMA on heathealth Safety, climate scientist warning

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Epic Pictures From Arizona’s Heatwave: “Everything Is Literally Melting”

June 25, 2017

Epic Pictures From Arizona’s Heatwave: “Everything Is Literally Melting”

Ask any Arizonan whether their summers are more tolerable because “it’s a dry heat” and you’re likely to be asked to turn your oven to 150 degrees, stick your head inside for 20 minutes and report back as to whether or not the humidity within the oven ever crossed you mind. Probably not.

And while Arizonans have learned to cope with the “dry heat,” this summer has been particularly brutal for people living in the Southwest as temperatures have already soared to over 120 degrees in certain areas. What’s worse, it’s only June.

And while the heatwave may not be that fun for the people living through it, it does making for some amazing pictures of stuff melting.

Perhaps that plastic mailbox post wasn’t such a great idea in retrospect.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Meanwhile In India, It Is So Hot The Roads Are Melting, “One Billion People Impacted”

May 28, 2015

Meanwhile In India, It Is So Hot The Roads Are Melting, “One Billion People Impacted”

While we patiently await Wall Street’s weathermen, formerly known as economists, to blame the next swoon in US GDP on California’s relentless drought, now in its fourth year, we wonder how many double seasonally-adjusted, pro-forma, non-GAAP GDP points India’s blistering heatwave will bring. Because if California thinks it has it bad, India has it far worse.

According to the National Post, soaring summer temperatures in India have left more than 1,400 people dead over the past month, officials said Thursday. Most of the 1,412 heat-related deaths so far have occurred in Andhra Pradesh and neighbouring Telangana, where temperatures have soared up to 47 C, according to government figures.

AccuWeather described India’s scorching weather as the most intense heat wave in India in recent years, adding that “a very active typhoon season, combined with drought in much of India, could have a significant impact on lives and property for more than a billion people in Asia during the summer of 2015.”

“The rains which have eluded us for the last couple of years have created serious drought conditions,” said state minister K.T. Rama Rao in Telangana, which was carved out of Andhra Pradesh as a separate state just last year.

India’s response to the stifling heat? In line with that of the Greek government and stockholders everywhere in the new normal: hope.

“This is unprecedented … so there is a little bit of panic,” he said. “Hopefully the monsoon will be on time. Hopefully we will receive rain very, very soon.”

For the locals it’s no laughing matter: “If I don’t work due to the heat, how will my family survive?” said construction worker Mahalakshmi, who earns a daily wage of about $3.10 in Nizamabad, a city about 150 kilometres north of the state capital of Hyderabad.

Other examples of just how bad it is:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

2013 record heatwave ‘virtually impossible’ without climate change, Climate Council of Australia report says

February 7, 2015

2013 record heatwave ‘virtually impossible’ without climate change, Climate Council of Australia report says

A new report by the Climate Council of Australia says it would have been “virtually impossible” for 2013 to be the hottest year in the country’s record without man-made emissions in the atmosphere.

The independently-funded group used new modelling to look at the odds of extreme heat events occurring, with and without man-made emissions.

A computer simulation of the atmosphere showed that climate change tripled the odds that the heatwaves of 2012/2013 would occur as frequently as they did and doubled the odds that they would be as intense as they were.

More than 123 temperature records were broken over that summer.

Professor Will Steffen said the record temperatures of 2013 were caused by man-made emissions.

“What were the odds of that happening without the human carbon pollution, and what were the odds with human carbon pollution? The answer is quite striking,” he said.

“The answer is that year, 2013, being the hottest year in Australia ever, was virtually impossible without human emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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