Heatwaves Sweep Across Europe

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Painting by Lady Frieda Harris used as the Hermit card in the Thoth tarot. It includes an image of Cerberus, the three-headed dog from Greek mythology..
Painting by Lady Frieda Harris used as the Hermit card in the Thoth tarot. It includes an image of Cerberus, the three-headed dog from Greek mythology..

https://bnn.network/breaking-news/climate-environment/italy-braces-for-record-breaking-heatwave-as-cerberus-anticyclone-approaches/

Italy is preparing for a fierce heatwave this week as an anticyclone named Cerberus brings temperatures close to breaking the European record. The high pressure system will cause temperatures to exceed 40C (104F) across much of the country by Wednesday, with Sicily and Sardinia expected to reach 47-48C.

This is the first major heatwave to hit Italy this year, following a spring and early summer marked by storms and flooding. The record for the highest temperature in European history was broken on August 11, 2021, when Floridia, a town in the Sicilian province of Syracuse, registered a high of 48.8C.

A heatwave is also sweeping across France, Germany, Spain, and Poland. In Spain, where temperatures could reach up to 44C in some southern parts of the country, the Red Cross has urged people to take extra care and check on those most vulnerable to high temperatures.

The organization is calling on people to stay hydrated, avoid caffeine and alcohol, and watch for signs of heatstroke. Spain’s state meteorological office, Aemet, said temperatures could reach 38C across many parts of the Iberian peninsula on Monday.

https://bnn.network/breaking-news/climate-environment/italy-braces-for-record-breaking-heatwave-as-cerberus-anticyclone-approaches/

Continue ReadingHeatwaves Sweep Across Europe

Climate activists protest at Rome’s Trevi fountain

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Activists from Italy’s Ultima Generazione (Last Generation) group turn Rome’s Trevi fountain black. Ultima Generazione is Italy’s group within the international Action Network. Italy has recently experienced extreme rain and flooding with at least 15 people killed.

Italy’s deadly floods are yet another example of climate change extremes, experts say

Floods that sent rivers of mud tearing through towns in Italy’s northeast are another drenching dose of climate change’s all-or-nothing weather extremes, scientists say. 

It is something that has been happening around the globe.

The coastal region of Emilia-Romagna was struck twice. First by heavy rain two weeks ago on the drought-parched ground that could not absorb it leading to overflowing riverbanks overnight. This was followed by the deluge that killed 13 and caused billions in damages this week. 

More than 10,000 people fled their homes, some plucked from rooftops or balconies by rescue helicopters and others ferried out on dinghies. 

Continue ReadingClimate activists protest at Rome’s Trevi fountain

‘Absolute Madness’: Record-Shattering Heat Dome Hits Europe

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BRETT WILKINS Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Original article republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

It’s “the most extreme event ever seen in European climatology,” said one climatologist. “Nothing stands close to this.”

As Europe closed the books on its warmest year ever recorded, an exceptionally potent winter heat dome descended on much of the continent over the holiday weekend, with thousands of daily and monthly high-temperature records shattered from Spain to Russia.

“The intensity and extent of warmth in Europe right now is hard to comprehend,” meteorologist Scott Duncan toldThe Times of London. “There are too many records to count. Literally thousands. Overnight minimum temperatures are like summer.”

The Times reported:

Bilbao in northern Spain reached 24.9°C, the hottest temperature recorded for the city in January and more akin to a summer’s day than the start of the year. Records were broken throughout Germany, including Dresden in the east where it was 13.5°C. Temperatures in Switzerland were at 20°C. The Czech Republic recorded a January national record of 19.6°C at the town of Javornik.

The Washington Postnoted that at least seven countries—Belarus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and Poland—recorded their warmest January temperatures ever.

Poland’s Institute of Meteorology and Water Management (IMGW) said Sunday that “the average daily temperature for Słubice was 15.3°C for the last day, and 15°C in Warsaw and Wrocław.”

“This means that we have a one-day thermal summer in the middle of winter,” IMGW added. “The thermal anomaly is over 15°C. This is an unprecedented situation in our climate.”

Climatologist Maximiliano Herrera, who specializes in extreme weather, called the temperatures “totally insane” and “absolute madness.”

It’s “the most extreme event ever seen in European climatology,” Herrera told the Post. “Nothing stands close to this.”

As the Post noted:

This exceptional wintertime warmth comes on the heels of the warmest 2022 in many parts of Europe, including in the U.K., Germany, and Switzerland. Extreme heat visited Europe in waves throughout the year and was intensified by a historically severe summer drought. The combination helped push the United Kingdom to 104°F (40°C) for the first time on record in July.

Climatologists said that while weather conditions caused the heat dome currently over Europe, there is a proven link between the continued burning of fossil fuels and rising global temperatures.

“The record-breaking across Europe over the new year was made more likely to happen by human-caused climate change,” Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto told The Times, “just as climate change is now making every heatwave more likely and hotter.”

Original article republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue Reading‘Absolute Madness’: Record-Shattering Heat Dome Hits Europe

‘Extreme event’: warm January weather breaks records across Europe

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/02/extreme-event-warm-january-weather-breaks-records-europe

Weather records have been falling across Europe at a disconcerting rate in the last few days, say meteorologists.

The warmest January day ever was recorded in at least eight European countries including Poland, Denmark, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia, according to data collated by Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist who tracks extreme temperatures.

Elsewhere on the continent, local records were broken at thousands of individual measuring stations, with nearly 950 toppled in Germany alone from 31 December to 2 January, Herrera said.

22.40 I’ll say it. I think that the climate is fekked. The Capitalists and politicians are responsible because they knew and were warned so many times but ignored it for profit, business historically facilitated by politicians.

Continue Reading‘Extreme event’: warm January weather breaks records across Europe

Climate Crisis Reality Check (2)

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The Paris Agreement 2015 is the latest international treaty on climate change.
  
Quoted from wikipedia 
 
...
The Paris Agreement's long-term temperature goal is to keep the rise in mean global temperature to well below 2 °C (3.6 °F) above pre-industrial levels, and preferably limit the increase to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F), recognizing that this would substantially reduce the effects of climate change. Emissions should be reduced as soon as possible and reach net-zero by the middle of the 21st century.[3] To stay below 1.5 °C of global warming, emissions need to be cut by roughly 50% by 2030. This is an aggregate of each country's nationally determined contributions. 
...
According to the 2020 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), with the current climate commitments of the Paris Agreement, global mean temperatures will likely rise by more than 3 °C by the end of the 21st century.
...
Countries determine themselves what contributions they should make to achieve the aims of the treaty. As such, these plans are called nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
...
In 2021, a study using a probabilistic model concluded that the rates of emissions reductions would have to increase by 80% beyond NDCs to likely meet the 2 °C upper target of the Paris Agreement, that the probabilities of major emitters meeting their NDCs without such an increase is very low. It estimated that with current trends the probability of staying below 2 °C of warming is 5% – and 26% if NDCs were met and continued post-2030 by all signatories.
...

The message from the above quotations is
1. The Paris Agreement is an attempt to limit climate change effects by keeping global mean (average) temperatures below 1.5C or 2C.
2. We are likely looking at global temperature rises between 2C and over 3C by the end of the century. 


We are currently at 1.1 or 1.2C global mean temperature above pre-industrial levels. There are extreme climate events now never mind at 1.5, 2 or over 3C. 

2022 saw record-breaking heat in UK while there were heatwaves and vast wildfires in North America, record-breaking temperatures and huge wildfires across France and Western Europe, huge drought followed by severe flooding in Pakistan, repeated flooding in Eastern Australia and currently East Africa is suffering the worst drought in decades.  

We are in a climate crisis at 1.2C. The crisis is now. 

The main cause of global warming is the use of fossil fuels. The best response to the climate crisis is to stop the use of fossil fuels as much as we possibly can and to transition to renewable sources of energy instead. This would also involve a programme of insulation to reduce the use of fossil fuels. 

Politicians worldwide are neglecting to address the climate crisis in any meaningful way. The protest group Just Stop Oil is calling for no new development of fossil fuels. Grant Shapps, UK's Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is so totally out of touch that he's not even familiar with Just Stop Oil's objectives: “I’ve no issue with people arguing for lower levels of petrol, gas or whatever other thing they want to campaign for usage, that is fine, that is one thing. But don’t go disrupting other people’s lives - it’s unacceptable, it’s illegal!”, the Business Secretary said.  

Young people particularly should get active opposing climate destruction because it's fekking their futures and otherwise they're just going to keep on getting totally disregarded, shat on. Extreme weather events at 1.2C are so serious, 3C may well lead to extinction and next to nothing is being done to prevent it.

Some links - try searching for your own e.g. extreme weather events 2022
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement
Met Office: Unprecedented extreme heatwave (UK), July 2022
Analysis: Africa’s unreported extreme weather in 2022 and climate change
Over 20,000 died in western Europe’s summer heatwaves, figures show

16/12/22 Climate Reality Check 2021


Continue ReadingClimate Crisis Reality Check (2)