A woman in London uses a newspaper to shelter from the sun during the peak of June’s heatwave in England and Wales. Friends of the Earth said it was a ‘national scandal’ the UK was so dangerously unprepared. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA
Extreme heat led to 440 deaths a day during June peak, say scientists, with climate crisis ramping up temperatures
The heatwave that affected England and Wales in June killed about 440 people a day during its three-day peak, scientists have estimated. Across the whole of the June heatwave, plus the one in May, about 2,700 people lost their lives prematurely.
The data starkly illustrates the danger of extreme heat, which is being supercharged by the climate crisis. More than 40% of the people affected would not have died without the 1.4C of human-caused global heating to date, according to the analysis. For comparison, about four people die each day as a result of road traffic collisions and about 35 a day because of alcohol and drug use, according to government statistics.
Extreme temperatures will worsen as continued fossil fuel burning pumps pollution into the atmosphere, making cuts in emissions and measures to protect people from global heating urgent, say experts.
“These are big numbers and we don’t want to see this many people dying,” said Dr Clair Barnes, at Imperial College London, who led the analysis. “We’ve reached the point where the heat is so extreme that we can’t help but acknowledge the impacts it has.”
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Guardian Exclusive: In 2024, 15 national temperature records have been set as weather extremes grow more frequent, climate historian says
A record 15 national heat records have been broken since the start of this year, an influential climate historian has told the Guardian, as weather extremes grow more frequent and climate breakdown intensifies.
An additional 130 monthly national temperature records have also been broken, along with tens of thousands of local highs registered at monitoring stations from the Arctic to the South Pacific, according to Maximiliano Herrera, who keeps an archive of extreme events.
He said the unprecedented number of records in the first six months was astonishing. “This amount of extreme heat events is beyond anything ever seen or even thought possible before,” he said. “The months from February 2024 to July 2024 have been the most record-breaking for every statistic.”
This is alarming because last year’s extreme heat could be largely attributed to a combination of man-made global heating – caused by burning gas, oil, coal and trees – and a natural El Niño phenomenon, a warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean surface that is associated with higher temperatures in many parts of the world. The El Niño has been fading since February of this year, but this has brought little relief.
“Far from dwindling with the end of El Niño, records are falling at even much faster pace now compared to late 2023,” said Herrera.
Firefighters set a backfire on the eastern front of the Park Fire, spanning 360,141 acres and 12% contained on July 28, 2024 near Chico, California. David McNew / Getty Images
Thousands of firefighters in California are battling the Park Fire in northern California after it doubled in size within 24 hours, reported Reuters.
The massive wildfire is the sixth-largest in the state’s history, having burned 370,000 acres since it started on Wednesday, The New York Times reported. It had also destroyed more than 100 structures and threatened thousands more.
“It looked like a volcano,” said Paul Mozzino, who had evacuated his Humboldt Highlands home, “like something out of ‘Hellraiser,’” as reported by The New York Times.
The fire was 12 percent contained, but evacuation orders or warnings remained for Butte, Plumas, Tehama and Shasta counties, CNN reported.
A man wades through flood water in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland, in November. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA
Winter downpours also made 20% wetter and will occur every three years without urgent carbon cuts, experts warn
The seemingly “never-ending” rain last autumn and winter in the UK and Ireland was made 10 times more likely and 20% wetter by human-caused global heating, a study has found.
More than a dozen storms battered the region in quick succession between October and March, which was the second-wettest such period in nearly two centuries of records. The downpour led to severe floods, at least 20 deaths, severe damage to homes and infrastructure, power blackouts, travel cancellations, and heavy losses of crops and livestock.
The level of rain caused by the storms would have occurred just once in 50 years without the climate crisis, but is now expected every five years owing to 1.2C of global heating reached in recent years. If fossil fuel burning is not rapidly cut and the global temperature reaches 2C in the next decade or two, such severe wet weather would occur every three years on average, the analysis showed.
The experts behind the study warned that work to protect the populations of the UK and Ireland was still “sorely lacking” and poor and vulnerable people were hardest hit. For example, dehumidifiers provided to dry out flooded homes were not used by some because of high energy costs, while others could not afford to replace losses of frozen food after storms cut power supplies.
The analysis, conducted by climate scientists working as part of the World Weather Attribution group, compared how likely and how intense the wet winter was in today’s heated world with how likely it would have been in a world without high levels of carbon emissions. Warmer air can hold more water vapour and therefore produce more rain. Hundreds of “attribution studies” have shown how global heating is already supercharging extreme weather such as heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and storms across the world.
“The seemingly never-ending rainfall this autumn and winter across the UK and Ireland had notable impacts,” said Dr Mark McCarthy, a climate scientist at the UK Met Office and part of the WWA team. “In the future we can expect further increases – that’s why it is so important for us to adapt to our changing climate and become more resilient.”
Dr Sarah Kew, a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and also part of the WWA team, said: “The UK and Ireland face a wetter, damper and mouldier future due to climate change. Until the world reduces emissions to net zero, the climate will continue to warm, and rainfall in the UK and Ireland will continue to get heavier.”
A scorching heatwave is ravaging South and Southeast Asia, impacting hundreds of millions with its intense heat. With April temperatures shattering previous records, the region is witnessing extreme weather patterns, wildfires, and tragic heat-related deaths. Schools have been forced to close, agricultural production and storage of perishable foods have been disrupted, and the risk of heatstroke and other health problems has risen significantly.
The scientists attribute the heatwave to the diminishing influence of the 2023–2024 El Niño event, which started in July 2023.
Forest fires and heatstroke deaths in Bangladesh
Bangladesh has experienced increasingly extreme weather conditions in recent years, and April 2024 stands out as the hottest month since 1948, with average temperatures ranging from 40–42 degrees Celsius (104–107.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in over 80 percent of the country.
Climate journalist Rafiqul Montu posted on X (formerly Twitter):
Wildfires erupt amid extreme heat and dry conditions
There was a continuous #HeatWave in #Bangladesh throughout April '24. Bangladesh has never seen such a hot April before. @zoom_earth map showing the heat intensity of the last day of April. The Meteorological Department has said, the abnormal heat will continue even after April. pic.twitter.com/ABE01jqTJC
#Bangladesh is burning in #heatwave. Four rounds of #heatalert have been issued in the country. Educational institutions were closed for a few days. April broke the 76-year record for consecutive heat waves. The abnormal heat wave disrupts people's life. pic.twitter.com/WgI4Od9b2z
Typically in April, Bangladesh receives 130.2 millimetres of rain, however, this year, there was almost none. The government announced the closure of government schools affecting 33 million students nationwide, while private schools with better facilities transitioned to online education. In just one week of April, over 10 deaths across the country were attributed to heatstroke.
However, the most notable impact was the wildfires in different parts of the Sundarbans Reserve Forest, the world’s largest mangrove forest. Sundarbans is a remote area, lacking adequate firefighting resources nearby. The Forest Department, along with fire service personnel, local villagers, and other volunteers, could only start firefighting efforts 17 hours after the first fire. As of the time of writing this report, a significant portion of the huge fire in the Amurbunia area of the Chandpai range is still burning, posing a threat to its rich biodiversity.
