Experts spoke about the most serious natural disasters in millennia

The heat wave is most severely experienced in the Mediterranean countries of Europe. Their inhabitants, who are accustomed to a mild and warm climate, are now forced to adapt to conditions that are rather characteristic of the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. The European Space Agency, for example, predicts that temperatures on the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia could reach 48 degrees Celsius in the third week of July. If this happens, the absolute maximum for the entire measurement period in the region will be updated. Even people who question the problem of global warming and oppose measures to combat it will probably agree that almost 50-degree heat in the shade is not normal. Especially considering that earlier in July it was usually 30-odd degrees here, rarely more.

A similar problem is observed in Greece. There, the authorities of Athens took unprecedented measures: at noon on July 14, they decided to close the most visited monument in the country, the Acropolis, explaining this by concern for tourists. The motives of the leadership of the Greek capital are quite understandable: the air temperature on Friday at Syntagma Square reached 45 degrees Celsius, and some people began to lose consciousness. And by 9 pm on that day, the Greek Ministry of Culture announced that the ancient sanctuary would be closed on Saturday – even earlier than on Friday, “because the stones and marble have absorbed too much heat.”

Forty-degree heat will continue in most of the Mediterranean and many countries of the Balkan Peninsula, follows from the weather forecast for Tuesday, July 18. So far, there are no hints of a decrease in temperature in the coming days.

To understand the seriousness of the situation, it is enough to turn to the statistics maintained by scientific institutions and European governments. The study, which was published in the journal Nature, claims that more than 60,000 people died due to heatwaves in Europe last summer. Mostly elderly people. At the same time, the season from late May to early September was recognized as the hottest on the European continent in the entire history of observations, and the current one, presumably, will be even hotter. Everything now, according to climatologists and WHO experts, is moving towards this. And this means that, unfortunately, there may be more victims of abnormal heat.

Extremely high temperatures are also hitting the United States. The US National Weather Service issued a warning over the weekend that “widespread and debilitating” heatwaves in southern and western states will soon peak. More than 80 million people are expected to be affected, including the most populous California and Texas. Meanwhile, in southern California, the fight against forest fires continues, but they have not yet been eliminated. And in the national park Death Valley, located on the territory of the same state and gained fame as an extremely hot and arid place, the thermometer reached a frightening 52 degrees Celsius.

On the other side of the globe, they are also alarmed. Heatstroke warnings have been issued by the Japanese authorities. In Tokyo, it is believed that in the worst case, near-record temperatures will affect the lives of tens of millions of people across the country.

However, climatic anomalies in the summer of 2023 are not limited to one extreme heat. Floods are becoming the most destructive, in recent weeks there have already been many cities around the world. India had a particularly difficult time. Heavy rains have not stopped there for many days in a row, as a result of which rivers overflow their banks. It floods both metropolitan areas and rural areas. CNN reported June 27 that severe flooding in the northeast of the country affected nearly half a million people in 22 districts of Assam. Entire villages then went under water, and the inhabitants were forced to urgently flee so as not to die.

And on July 14, it became known that the authorities of the Indian city of Delhi evacuated about 24 thousand people after a critical increase in the water level in the Yamuna River. Never before had he climbed so high. Of course, it is too early to assess the economic damage from floods, especially since the risk of flooding of the next settlements has not disappeared. The preliminary death toll is estimated at 145 people.

Flash floods in July also damaged the US states of Vermont and Pennsylvania. In Vermont, the cataclysm was recognized as the strongest since Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. US President Joe Biden even had to declare a state of emergency in the state. The shots where houses are covered up to the roof under water, and cars are floating along the streets, are frightening. In Pennsylvania, three people are reported dead, and four more are missing as a result of sudden flooding.

In South Korea, at least 40 people have died due to floods and landslides caused by days-long downpours that hit the central and southern regions. The downpours forced more than 10,000 people to evacuate, damaged more than 139 houses and washed away 146 roads, according to the Yonhap news agency.

The epicenter of the riot of nature was the central city of Cheongju. At least 13 people have died there after being stuck and drowned in their cars in the 685-meter-long Osong Underground Tunnel as a result of flooding. The authorities failed to prevent the tragedy. It is known that since July 9, more than 60 cm of rain has fallen in the cities of Gongju and Cheongyang in South Chungcheong Province. At the same time, in Cheongju itself, where the ill-fated tunnel is located, over the same period, the water level exceeded 54 cm.

Commenting on the catastrophe that occurred in Cheongju, President Yoon Seok-yeol made a resonant statement. The politician became one of the first state leaders to claim that the climate crisis has made extreme weather a fact of life. “These kinds of extreme weather events will become commonplace … we have to recognize that climate change is happening and deal with it,” Yoon said before visiting the flood-stricken North Gyeongsang province.

Moreover, Yoon Seok-yeol spoke out against considering extreme weather conditions associated with climate change an anomaly that is pointless to fight. Yoon intends to improve the country’s preparedness and response. Let’s hope that the idea will succeed not only in South Korea, and civilization will not be so vulnerable to the raging forces of nature.

To continue to consider the ongoing cataclysms as an anomaly or to transfer them into the category of already quite ordinary phenomena is, of course, a moot point. One thing is clear: the problem is really very acute, and in the summer of 2023 it again declared itself in the form of sweltering heat and floods with hundreds of deaths. According to the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, “climate change is out of control.” Back in early July, he warned that if the world persisted in postponing the key measures needed to curb fossil fuel emissions, it would lead to “a catastrophic situation.”

“We should not be surprised at all by high global temperatures,” said Professor Richard Betts, a climatologist at the Met Office and the University of Exeter. “All of this is a stark reminder of what we have known for a long time, and we will continue to see more extreme events until we stop accumulating more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” he told the BBC.

Experts from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) are confident that nothing like this has been seen on Earth since instrumental air temperature measurements began in the 1850s. “We are in uncharted territory and this is disturbing news for the planet,” Professor Christopher Hewitt, WMO Director of Climate Services, told The Guardian.

This view was supported by Carsten Haustein, a researcher at the University of Leipzig on atmospheric radiation. “There is a possibility that July will be the hottest month on record… “ever,” which means since the interglacial period, which has been going on since about 120,000 years ago.”