Tokyo To Jasper To Taiwan - 4 Hottest Days In The Global Weather Record; Antarctic Temps Up To 21F Over Averages

As global temperatures spiked to their highest levels in recorded history on Monday, ambulances were screaming through the streets of Tokyo, carrying scores of people who’d collapsed amid an unrelenting heat wave. A monster typhoon was emerging from the scorching waters of the Pacific Ocean, which were several degrees warmer than normal. Thousands of vacationers fled the idyllic mountain town of Jasper, Canada ahead of a fast-moving wall of wildfire flames.

By the end of the week — which saw the four hottest days ever observed by scientists — dozens had been killed in the raging floodwaters and massive mudslides triggered by Typhoon Gaemi. Half of Jasper was reduced to ash. And some 3.6 billion people around the planet had endured temperatures that would have been exceedingly rare in a world without burning fossil fuels and other human activities, according to an analysis by scientists at the group Climate Central. These extraordinary global temperatures marked the culmination of an unprecedented global hot streak that has stunned even researchers who spent their whole careers studying climate change. Since last July, Earth’s average temperature has consistently exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels — a short-term breach of a threshold that scientists say cannot be crossed if the world hopes to avoid the worst consequences of planetary warming.

This “taste” of a 1.5 degree world showed how the natural systems that humans depend on could buckle amid soaring temperatures, said Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. Forests showed less ability to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. Sea ice around Antarctica dwindled to near record lows. Coral bleaching became so extreme scientists had to change their scale for measuring it.

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The worst of this week’s heat was concentrated in Antarctica, where temperatures were as much as 12 degrees Celsius (21.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal. Lynne Talley, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego, said that anomaly is likely the product of strong winds pushing warm air onto the continent. Those conditions will make it more difficult for the ocean to freeze during what is usually the prime time for sea ice formation. “It seems like global warming is finally catching up with Antarctica, and that’s pretty frightening,” she said. The amount of sea ice around Antarctica is already at its second lowest level on record for this time of year — coming in just behind last July. After losing an unprecedented amount of ice cover during the 2023 melt season, Talley said, the region has been unable to rebound.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/07/27/hottest-days-ever-recorded-climate-change/