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118 All-Time Heat Records Set Around the Globe (miamiherald.com)
"It's so hot, even parts of the Arctic are on fire," reports Vox, citing wildfires in Sweden, while Greece "has declared a state of emergency as raging forest fires have killed at least 81 people and injured more than 190."
But heat-related disasters are happening around the world. In Japan 86 people have been killed by heatstroke, while another 23,000 people have been hospitalized -- about half of them over the age of 65 -- in a heat wave forecast to continue for another two weeks. "Japan hit 106 degrees on Monday, its hottest temperature ever," reports the Associated Press, adding that "So far this month, at least 118 of these all-time heat records have been set or tied across the globe." An anonymous reader quotes their report. "We now have very strong evidence that global warming has already put a thumb on the scales, upping the odds of extremes like severe heat and heavy rainfall," Stanford University climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh said. "We find that global warming has increased the odds of record-setting hot events over more than 80 percent of the planet, and has increased the odds of record-setting wet events at around half of the planet..."
"The world is becoming warmer and so heat waves like this are becoming more common," said Friederike Otto, deputy director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford.
"Death Valley, California, has set three consecutive daily record-high temperatures of 127 degrees," reports the Washington Post, adding that "Sometimes, like right now in the Western U.S., it's too hot for airplanes to fly" because of heat-related changes in air density at high-altitude airports. In Europe, nuclear power plants in Finland, Sweden, and German were forced to cut electricity production because high temperatures heated the seawater needed to cool reactors.
In northern California 38,000 people fled their homes as an 80,900-acre wildfire spread through the Shasta-Trinity area. Reuters reports the wildfire was caused "by hot, dry weather and high winds" -- and that it's one of 89 large wildfires currently burning in 14 U.S. states.
But heat-related disasters are happening around the world. In Japan 86 people have been killed by heatstroke, while another 23,000 people have been hospitalized -- about half of them over the age of 65 -- in a heat wave forecast to continue for another two weeks. "Japan hit 106 degrees on Monday, its hottest temperature ever," reports the Associated Press, adding that "So far this month, at least 118 of these all-time heat records have been set or tied across the globe." An anonymous reader quotes their report. "We now have very strong evidence that global warming has already put a thumb on the scales, upping the odds of extremes like severe heat and heavy rainfall," Stanford University climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh said. "We find that global warming has increased the odds of record-setting hot events over more than 80 percent of the planet, and has increased the odds of record-setting wet events at around half of the planet..."
"The world is becoming warmer and so heat waves like this are becoming more common," said Friederike Otto, deputy director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford.
"Death Valley, California, has set three consecutive daily record-high temperatures of 127 degrees," reports the Washington Post, adding that "Sometimes, like right now in the Western U.S., it's too hot for airplanes to fly" because of heat-related changes in air density at high-altitude airports. In Europe, nuclear power plants in Finland, Sweden, and German were forced to cut electricity production because high temperatures heated the seawater needed to cool reactors.
In northern California 38,000 people fled their homes as an 80,900-acre wildfire spread through the Shasta-Trinity area. Reuters reports the wildfire was caused "by hot, dry weather and high winds" -- and that it's one of 89 large wildfires currently burning in 14 U.S. states.
With exponential growth in third world country populations as well as rapid industrialisation of China etc. this is only the beginning. What needs to be done is to make a choice: More humans helped into this world through aid and relief efforts for irreversible damage to the environment, or a sustainable future for those that will be left of us.
Please prove me wrong.
"Here are a few maps that illustrate this. Over 1,100 daily record low temperatures have been broken this week alone -- over 1,800 in the last 30 days, along with over 1,100 snow records. The last week of records broken, tied, or approached is shown in this animation from CoolWx.com"
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The methane is releasing in Siberia now.
It's on, I believe the runaway effect is going on. It's still going to be slow for us as humans, since the world moves at a slower pace.
Shit is hitting the fan, now. Little tiny flecks have already hit the blade, but huge lumps coming soon.
Don't breed, we're going to see some serious shit in the next 20 years. Not 200, the next 20 will be shocking.
Oh you know, the total mass of insects has fallen by nearly 80% in 40 years. Doesn't that figure ring a bell about something exceptional happening? Bet most people didn't even know that.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
that is not the real problem. The real problem is that extremists on both sides are total idiots.
Far right screams that AGW is not happening,
while the far left, wants to give passes for all nations except for the west, esp. America. For some odd reason, they believe that by stopping ~1/4 of the emissions, while allowing other nations, esp China, to add to their emissions by more than what the west was doing, is OK. Add to that, most of the far left, continue to fight Nuke power. Yet, the ONLY nations that have low CO2 emissions are those with large hydro, geo-thermal, or Nukes. What they do not have, is large Wind/Solar.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.