Heat wave | From the US to China: Extreme heat records broken in the Northern Hemisphere (and why August could be worse?) | the world

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Thermometers don’t lie. Millions of people in the Northern Hemisphere are reeling from extreme heat waves, often causing wildfires or floods. High-temperature milestones are broken almost daily in the most remote places, where authorities continue to maintain maximum alerts.

The consensus among the scientific community is that the heat waves we are seeing in North America, Europe and Asia are more intense and more frequent than in the past. Although the El Nino phenomenon is blamed for this year’s high temperatures, global warming has exacerbated the problem.

Gino Passalacqua, Ph.D. An oceanographic and climate science and meteorologist, heat waves occur when a high pressure system in the Northern Hemisphere stays in place for days or weeks, and this high pressure system forms a heat dome that traps very warm air, usually from the Pacific or ocean. “Being a high-pressure system, it pushes this warm air towards the Earth, making it warmer and drier,” he told El Comercio.

An important August

More worryingly, weather forecasts do not predict any relief. The American space agency (NASA) also warned yesterday that if the emission of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is not stopped, the heat wave will continue in the Northern Hemisphere.

“Temperatures have increased every decade for the past four decades. Last June was the hottest June on record, and we expect July to be the hottest July ever,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Passalacqua notes that the heat is still a few weeks away. “Due to the atmospheric circulation, the temperature will drop in some places in the next week, but it will return. August is the hottest month in the Northern Hemisphere. Climatically, average temperatures should continue to rise for the next two weeks, but after that they will warm up,” he says.

He also explains that although dawn is normally a time when temperatures drop due to the absence of solar radiation, the presence of heat domes does not cause temperatures to drop as much as usual.

Adverse effects

According to the World Meteorological Organization, heat waves cause thousands of deaths because living conditions are unbearable, especially when they last for a long time. People with critical health conditions and the elderly are particularly vulnerable to its effects.

Baslakwa says that heat ravages are worse in cities because there is concrete and tar on the slopes, so the temperature rises, so it may be 38 degrees Celsius, but the wind chill may be 4 or 5 degrees more than that.

Extreme weather events cause higher-than-normal humidity, resulting in floods like those in Italy and other countries, which can spread disease. The World Health Organization has warned yesterday that the rate of dengue is increasing worldwide and that the incidence of dengue may reach its peak this year.

“Working conditions are very difficult, especially for physically demanding work done in the sun. This also has a serious impact on food production: crops do not withstand high heat for long. Therefore, the harvest is lost, or its volume is reduced. Due to these heat waves, global projections say that food production has decreased by 30%, which is very significant”, points out Pasalacqua.