International 'Cerberus' Heatwave Threatens to Break Records in Southern Europe

[heloder]

you left some out

I may have left it out because none of it has anything to do with the topic of climate change on Earth. Maybe.

But I love arguing with people who have no idea what they're talking about, so let's get this party started, shall we?

Mars is warming

nobody denies this

How much has Mars warmed over the last 100 years? 1000 years? 10,000 years? 100,000 years? Where's the data? What's your hypothesis for the cause of said warming (if you can actually prove it is)? And finally, what does that have to do with climate change on Earth?

Pluto is warming

nobody denies this

How much has Pluto warmed over the last 100 years? 1000 years? 10,000 years? 100,000 years? Where's the data? What's your hypothesis for the cause of said warming (if you can actually prove it is)? And finally, what does that have to do with climate change on Earth?

increased concentrations of carbon dioxide increase photosynthesis, spurring plant growth.

nobody denies this

What does this have to do with climate change on Earth? Are you proposing that pumping CO2 into the atmosphere (and thus, increasing global temperatures) is a good thing, because plants like CO2?

A quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years

nobody denies this

Cool! Post the study and let's dive into what the potential meaning of it is.

Oh and I suppose I should ask you if you have an actual rebuttal to my previous post. Do you disagree with any of the statements?

 

[dirtypablo]

Video well worth a watch discussing something that I have mentioned several times in these threads - there is increasing evidence that the climate is in fact much more sensitive to CO2 than we thought. Many of the changes are happening far more rapidly than predicted - in the latest IPCC report I recall reading several sections detailing observed changes that weren't predicted to happen for another 100 years. For those of you dorks who harp on the, 'but more people die from the cold' nonsense, you can fast forward to the 14 minute mark where she gives a good summary of what is going to happen and why.

 

[LeonardoBjj]

Chile declares state of emergency over raging forest fires​

At least 19 people have died and the blaze in the tourist region of Valparaiso has forced many to flee their homes.

Chile has declared a state of emergency as it battles spreading forest fires in the centre of the country that have so far killed at least 19 people.

“All forces are deployed in the fight against the forest fires,” President Gabriel Boric posted on X as he announced the measure, adding that emergency services would meet on Saturday to assess the situation.
The fires have ravaged thousands of hectares of forest since Friday, cloaking coastal cities in a dense fog of grey smoke and forcing people to flee their homes in the central regions of Vina del Mar and Valparaiso.

At least 19 people have died, and the death toll could rise as rescue teams reach more affected areas, Interior Minister Carolina Toha said.

“The report of fatalities is very provisional,” Toha said. “We have reports from other places where there are indications that there may be more people dead but we do not have confirmation on the ground.”

Leonardo Moder, the director of Valparaiso’s national forestry corporation, said earlier in the day: “We have winds of close to 40 or 50km [25-31 miles] per hour.”

“This wind is hard because it carries lit leaves, branches or pieces of wood, and each creates a new little fire that grows into more fires,” he added.

The blaze is being driven by a summer heatwave and drought affecting the southern part of South America caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon, as scientists warn that a warming planet has increased the risk of natural disasters such as intense heat and fires.


Throughout the country there were 92 active fires, leaving more than 43,000 hectares affected by the incident, Interior Minister Toha said.

In the towns of Estrella and Navidad, southwest of the capital, the fires have burned nearly 30 homes and forced evacuations near the surfing resort of Pichilemu.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” 63-year-old Yvonne Guzman told the AFP news agency. When the flames started to close in on her home in Quilpue, she fled with her elderly mother, only to find themselves trapped in traffic for hours.

“It’s very distressing because we’ve evacuated the house but we can’t move forward. There are all these people trying to get out and who can’t move,” she said.

About 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) have already been burned in Valparaiso alone, according to CONAF, the Chilean national forest authority, which called the blazes “extreme”.

Images filmed by trapped motorists have gone viral online, showing mountains in flames at the end of the famous Route 68, a road used by thousands of tourists to get to the Pacific coast beaches.

On Friday, authorities closed the road, which links Valparaiso to the capital, Santiago, as a huge mushroom cloud of smoke “reduced visibility”.

As Chile and Colombia battle rising temperatures, the heatwave is also threatening to sweep over Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil in the coming days.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/3/chile-declares-state-of-emergency-over-raging-forest-fires

 

[LeonardoBjj]

Hurricanes becoming so strong that new category needed, study says​

Scientists propose new category 6 rating to classify ‘mega-hurricanes’, becoming more likely due to climate crisis.

Hurricanes are becoming so strong due to the climate crisis that the classification of them should be expanded to include a “category 6” storm, furthering the scale from the standard 1 to 5, according to a new study.

Over the past decade, five storms would have been classed at this new category 6 strength, researchers said, which would include all hurricanes with sustained winds of 192mph or more. Such mega-hurricanes are becoming more likely due to global heating, studies have found, due to the warming of the oceans and atmosphere.

Michael Wehner, a scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the US, said that “192mph is probably faster than most Ferraris, it’s hard to even imagine”. He has proposed the new category 6 alongside another researcher, James Kossin of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Being caught in that sort of hurricane would be bad. Very bad.”

The new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, proposes an extension to the widely used Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, which was developed in the early 1970s by Herbert Saffir, a civil engineer, and Robert Simpson, a meteorologist who was the director of the US National Hurricane Center.

The scale classifies any hurricane with a sustained maximum wind speed of 74mph or more to be a category 1 event, with the scale rising the faster the winds. Category 3 and above is considered to include major hurricanes that risk severe damage to property and life, with the strongest, category 5, including all storms that are 157mph or more.

Category 5 storms have caused spectacular damage in recent years – such as Hurricane Katrina’s ravaging of New Orleans in 2005 and Hurricane Maria’s devastating impact upon Puerto Rico in 2017 – but the new study argues there is now a class of even more extreme storms that demands its own category.

They include Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 6,000 people in the Philippines in 2013, and Hurricane Patricia, which reached a top speed of 215mph when it formed near Mexico in 2015.

“There haven’t been any in the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico yet but they have conditions conducive to a category 6, it’s just luck that there hasn’t been one yet,” said Wehner. “I hope it won’t happen, but it’s just a roll of the dice. We know that these storms have already gotten more intense, and will continue to do so.”

While the total number of hurricanes is not rising due to the climate crisis, researchers have found that the intensity of major storms has notably increased during the four-decade satellite record of hurricanes. A super-heated ocean is providing extra energy to rapidly intensify hurricanes, aided by a warmer, moisture-laden atmosphere.


Wehner said the Saffir-Simpson scale was an imperfect measure of the dangers posed to people by a hurricane, which mostly come via severe rainfall and coastal flooding rather than the strong winds themselves, but that a category 6 would highlight the heightened risks brought by the climate crisis. “Our main purpose is to raise awareness that climate change is affecting the most intense storms,” he said.

The systems used to chart the world around us have been previously tweaked to reflect the rapid changes of the modern era. Australia’s bureau of meteorology added a new colour – purple – to its weather maps to account for ferocious heat, while just last week the US government’s Coral Reef Watch programme added three new alert categories to capture the increasing heat stress suffered by corals.

There is no indication there will soon be hurricanes officially classified as category 6, however. The US National Hurricane Center did not respond to a request for comment about the new study.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...so-strong-that-new-category-needed-study-says

 

[LeonardoBjj]

Chile wildfires death toll rises to 131​

Fires in Valparaíso said to be country’s deadliest disaster since 2010 earthquake

The death toll from wildfires that ravaged central Chile for several days has risen to 131, and more than 300 people remain missing as the blazes appear to be burning themselves out.

The fires in the Valparaíso region are said to be Chile’s deadliest disaster since an earthquake in 2010. Officials have suggested that some of the fires could have been lit intentionally.

President Gabriel Boric announced during a visit to the region that furniture used for the 2023 Pan American Games would be donated to victims. He said the government would also forgive the water bills for 9,200 affected homes.

The fires began on Friday on the mountainous eastern edge of Viña del Mar, a beach resort known for its Latin music festival. Two other cities, Quilpué and Villa Alemana, were also hit hard as the fires spread quickly in dry weather and strong winds.

The Viña del Mar festival cancelled its opening gala as a mark of mourning. Many participating singers, including Alejandro Sanz, Pablo Alborán and Maná, sent messages of solidarity and announced donations.

The Forensic Medical Service has said many bodies recovered from the fires were difficult to identify but forensic workers would take samples of genetic material from people reporting missing relatives.

Gabriel Leiva, 46, said: “My parents’ and my sisters’ house burned, and my neighbours – the people who knew me when I was little – died.” Going through debris in Viña del Mar, he said his neighbours were “family that is not of blood but of the heart”.

The United Nations offered its condolences and announced assistance. Boric tweeted his thanks to the US president, Joe Biden, for “his important support” after the disaster.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ires-death-toll-rises-valparaiso-vina-del-mar

 

[LeonardoBjj]

Polar bears risk starvation as they face longer ice-free periods in the Arctic​

Bears use ice to access food, but study of animals in Canada shows them struggling to adapt to more time on land amid climate crisis

A male polar bear eats a piece of whale meat as it walks along the shore of Hudson Bay near Churchill, Manitoba. Photograph: Sean Kilpatrick/AP

Polar bears in Canada’s Hudson Bay risk starvation as the climate crisis lengthens periods without Arctic Sea ice, despite the creatures’ willingness to expand their diets.

Polar bears use the ice that stretches across the ocean surface in the Arctic during colder months to help them access their main source of prey – fatty ringed and bearded seals.

In the warmer months when the sea ice recedes, they would be expected to conserve their energy and even enter a hibernation-like state.

But human-caused climate change is extending this ice-free period in parts of the Arctic – which is heating between two and four times faster than the rest of the world – and forcing the polar bears to spend more and more time on land.

New research looking at 20 polar bears in Hudson Bay suggests that without sea ice they still try to find food.

“Polar bears are creative, they’re ingenious, you know, they will search the landscape for ways to try to survive and find food resources to compensate their energy demands if they’re motivated,” Anthony Pagano, a research wildlife biologist with the US Geological Survey and lead author of the study, told AFP.

The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, used video camera GPS collars to track the polar bears for three-week periods over the course of three years in the western Hudson Bay, where the ice-free period has increased by three weeks from 1979 to 2015, meaning that in the last decade bears were on land for approximately 130 days.

The researchers found that of the group, two bears indeed rested and reduced their total energy expenditure to levels similar to hibernation, but the 18 others stayed active.

The study said these active bears may have been pushed to continue to look for food, with individual animals documented eating a variety of foods including grasses, berries, a gull, a rodent and a seal carcass.

Three ventured off on long swims – one travelled a total distance of 175km (more than a hundred miles) – while other bears spent time playing together or gnawing on caribou antlers, which researchers said was like the way dogs might chew bones.

But ultimately the researchers found that the bears’ efforts to find sustenance on land did not provide them with enough calories to match their normal marine mammal prey.

Nineteen out of the 20 polar bears studied lost weight during the period consistent with the amount of weight they would lose during a period of fasting, researchers said.

That means that the longer polar bears spend on land, the higher their risk for starvation.

“These findings really support the existing body of research that’s out there, and this is another piece of evidence that really raises that alarm,” Melanie Lancaster, senior Arctic species specialist for the World Wildlife Fund, who is not associated with the study, told AFP.

The world’s 25,000 polar bears remaining in the wild are endangered primarily by the climate crisis.

Limiting planet-heating greenhouse gases and keeping global heating under the Paris deal target of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels would likely preserve polar bear populations, Pagano said.

But global temperatures – already at 1.2C – continue to rise and sea ice dwindles.

John Whiteman, the chief research scientist at Polar Bears International, who was not involved in the study, said the research was valuable because it directly measures the polar bears’ energy expenditure during the ice-free periods.

“As ice goes, the polar bears go, and there is no other solution other than stopping ice loss. That is the only solution,” he told AFP.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/13/polar-bears-risk-starvation-arctic-ice

 

[LeonardoBjj]

Climate change could unearth, disturb Cold War-era nuclear waste buried by the US, officials say​

Long-term environmental changes were not taken into account during disposal.

ByJulia Jacobo

The rise in global temperatures that are causing Arctic ice to melt and sea levels to rise could disturb Cold War-era nuclear waste buried by the U.S. decades ago, according to a federal report.

Noxious waste buried beneath former nuclear weapons testing sites could be unearthed by 2100 should the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change continue at the current rate, a report published by the U.S. Government Accountability Office last month found.

At multiple testing sites around the world, the U.S. military detonated atmospheric nuclear weapons -- or hydrogen bombs -- and later attempted to clean up the leftover radioactive waste by putting them in containers covered with a concrete cap, Robert Hayes, an associate professor of nuclear engineering at North Carolina State University, told ABC News.

Rising temperatures could cause the spread of the radioactive contamination from these test sites in the coming decades, according to the Government Accountability Office report, which analyzes what is left of the nuclear debris in the Pacific Ocean, Greenland and Spain.

In Greenland, chemical pollutants and radioactive liquid left over from a nuclear power plant at Camp Century, a U.S. military research base, were frozen in ice sheets that could melt in the coming decades, according to the report. Denmark has instituted permanent ice sheet monitoring in the region.

The Greenland Ice Sheet is melting faster than previously thought, according to a study published in May 2023. Ice loss in the Arctic is the largest contributor to global sea level rise, scientists say.

In the Marshall Islands, the Runit Dome in the Enewetak Atoll was used as a radioactive waste disposal site that could be disturbed should sea levels continue to rise.

The U.S. conducted 67 nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands between 1946 to 1958, according to the Department of Energy. Most of the testing was in preparation for World War III, William Roy, a professor of nuclear, plasma and radiological engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told ABC News.

There are currently disagreements between Marshall Islands officials and the U.S. Department of Energy on the risk posed by the nuclear waste.

While the Department of Energy considers human health risks on the Marshall Islands to be low, Indigenous communities are concerned that climate change could mobilize radiological contamination, posing risks to fresh water and food sources, and local officials believe the U.S. government is downplaying the risks, according to the report.


The authors of the report have recommend that the U.S. Department of Energy come up with a plan to regain the trust of Indigenous communities in the Marshall Islands.

The U.S. military believed the cleanup missions they carried out was sufficient at the time but did not account for long-term environmental changes in these regions, Hayes said.

"The military was in the rush of the Cold War," Hayes said. "In hindsight, they could have done a better job."

The site of the 1966 midair collision between two U.S. defense aircraft -- of once which was carrying a hydrogen bomb -- over the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain exceeded European Union standards for radioactive contamination, according to the report.

But the experts agree that the waste does not pose an immediate threat.

Should the nuclear waste leak out of the containers, it probably wouldn't cause much damage, as it would dilute drastically in ocean waters Hayes said.

In Greenland, the spent fuel -- the material containing the components with the longest half lives -- was removed when the reactor was decommissioned, Roy said. The Danish government has also reported that the short-lived radionuclides probably have long-since decayed, according to the report. The remaining nuclides trapped in the ice would probably be diluted by the massive of amount of water creative amid the melting, Roy said.

In the Marshall Islands, though a more complicated situation with the presence of Plutonium detected, there is likely a "tremendous amount of dilution" there as well, Roy added.

The mere mention of radioactive material tends to spark fear, according to the experts.

"There is generally a public fear that is much higher than the actual risk," Hayes said.

Climate change presents problems much more immediate and threatening than Cold War-era nuclear waste, Roy said.

"Probably going to have greater issues from climate change than the mobilization of radionuclides from the Cold War," he said.

https://abcnews.go.com/Internationa...sturb-cold-war-era-nuclear/story?id=107633575

 

[LeonardoBjj]

South Sudan closes schools in preparation for 45C heatwave​

Authorities advise parents to keep children indoors during extreme heatwave, expected to last two weeks

South Sudan is closing all schools from Monday in preparation for an extreme heatwave expected to last two weeks.

The health and education ministries have advised parents to keep all children indoors as temperatures are expected to soar to 45C (113F).


They warned that any school found open during the warning period would have its registration withdrawn, but the statement issued late on Saturday did not specify how long schools would remain closed.

The ministries said they “will continue to monitor the situation and inform the public accordingly”.

Peter Garang, who lives in the capital, Juba, welcomed the decision. He said schools should be connected to the electricity grid to enable the installation of air conditioners.

South Sudan, one of the world’s youngest nations, is particularly vulnerable to the climate crisis with heatwaves common but rarely exceeding 40C (104F). Civil conflict has plagued the east African country, which also suffers drought and flooding, making living conditions difficult.

The World Food Programme in its latest country brief said South Sudan “continues to face a dire humanitarian crisis” due to violence, economic instability, climate change and an influx of people fleeing the conflict in neighbouring Sudan. It also stated that 818,000 vulnerable people were given food and cash-based transfers in January.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...loses-schools-in-preparation-for-45c-heatwave

 

[Whippy McGee]

you left some out

Mars is warming

nobody denies this

Pluto is warming

nobody denies this

increased concentrations of carbon dioxide increase photosynthesis, spurring plant growth.

nobody denies this

A quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years

nobody denies this

It turns out that when we only use rural temperature readings, and exclude the urban readings, we have no significant warming.

If we are producing more CO2, and the plants are flourishing, what do the plants produce? That's right... clean O2. The Global Warming Cult doesn't like to talk about that. CO2 gets recycled by plants into O2. We are fine.

It's hard to take any of these Global Warming Cultists seriously if they are not huge nuclear power advocates. It means they have no real solution, they are just chucking rocks and trying to tax and oppress.

 

[dirtypablo]

It turns out that when we only use rural temperature readings, and exclude the urban readings, we have no significant warming.

No, it doesn't. Stop falling for facebook junk articles.

If we are producing more CO2, and the plants are flourishing, what do the plants produce? That's right... clean O2. The Global Warming Cult doesn't like to talk about that. CO2 gets recycled by plants into O2. We are fine.

Talk about what? 7th grade biology? Do you really think this is some sort of gotcha?

It's hard to take any of these Global Warming Cultists seriously if they are not huge nuclear power advocates. It means they have no real solution, they are just chucking rocks and trying to tax and oppress.

You don't seem to be remotely aware of what the actual IPCC suggested solutions are, so how do you know 'they have no real solution'?

 

[Scerpi]

Polar bears risk starvation as they face longer ice-free periods in the Arctic​

Bears use ice to access food, but study of animals in Canada shows them struggling to adapt to more time on land amid climate crisis

A male polar bear eats a piece of whale meat as it walks along the shore of Hudson Bay near Churchill, Manitoba. Photograph: Sean Kilpatrick/AP

Polar bears in Canada’s Hudson Bay risk starvation as the climate crisis lengthens periods without Arctic Sea ice, despite the creatures’ willingness to expand their diets.

Polar bears use the ice that stretches across the ocean surface in the Arctic during colder months to help them access their main source of prey – fatty ringed and bearded seals.

In the warmer months when the sea ice recedes, they would be expected to conserve their energy and even enter a hibernation-like state.

But human-caused climate change is extending this ice-free period in parts of the Arctic – which is heating between two and four times faster than the rest of the world – and forcing the polar bears to spend more and more time on land.

New research looking at 20 polar bears in Hudson Bay suggests that without sea ice they still try to find food.

“Polar bears are creative, they’re ingenious, you know, they will search the landscape for ways to try to survive and find food resources to compensate their energy demands if they’re motivated,” Anthony Pagano, a research wildlife biologist with the US Geological Survey and lead author of the study, told AFP.

The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, used video camera GPS collars to track the polar bears for three-week periods over the course of three years in the western Hudson Bay, where the ice-free period has increased by three weeks from 1979 to 2015, meaning that in the last decade bears were on land for approximately 130 days.

The researchers found that of the group, two bears indeed rested and reduced their total energy expenditure to levels similar to hibernation, but the 18 others stayed active.

The study said these active bears may have been pushed to continue to look for food, with individual animals documented eating a variety of foods including grasses, berries, a gull, a rodent and a seal carcass.

Three ventured off on long swims – one travelled a total distance of 175km (more than a hundred miles) – while other bears spent time playing together or gnawing on caribou antlers, which researchers said was like the way dogs might chew bones.

But ultimately the researchers found that the bears’ efforts to find sustenance on land did not provide them with enough calories to match their normal marine mammal prey.

Nineteen out of the 20 polar bears studied lost weight during the period consistent with the amount of weight they would lose during a period of fasting, researchers said.

That means that the longer polar bears spend on land, the higher their risk for starvation.

“These findings really support the existing body of research that’s out there, and this is another piece of evidence that really raises that alarm,” Melanie Lancaster, senior Arctic species specialist for the World Wildlife Fund, who is not associated with the study, told AFP.

The world’s 25,000 polar bears remaining in the wild are endangered primarily by the climate crisis.

Limiting planet-heating greenhouse gases and keeping global heating under the Paris deal target of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels would likely preserve polar bear populations, Pagano said.

But global temperatures – already at 1.2C – continue to rise and sea ice dwindles.

John Whiteman, the chief research scientist at Polar Bears International, who was not involved in the study, said the research was valuable because it directly measures the polar bears’ energy expenditure during the ice-free periods.

“As ice goes, the polar bears go, and there is no other solution other than stopping ice loss. That is the only solution,” he told AFP.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/13/polar-bears-risk-starvation-arctic-ice

lol... The Polar Bears again

 

[ShadowRun]

 

[lilelvis]

We’re gonna have to get serious about this and sacrifice more kids..

 

[Helden]

It turns out that when we only use rural temperature readings, and exclude the urban readings, we have no significant warming.

If we are producing more CO2, and the plants are flourishing, what do the plants produce? That's right... clean O2. The Global Warming Cult doesn't like to talk about that. CO2 gets recycled by plants into O2. We are fine.

It's hard to take any of these Global Warming Cultists seriously if they are not huge nuclear power advocates. It means they have no real solution, they are just chucking rocks and trying to tax and oppress.

Your understanding of climate and atmospheric science is non existent.

 

[lilelvis]

Your understanding of climate and atmospheric modeling and wealth transfer is non existent.

Ftfy

 

[Helden]

Ftfy

The big solar cabal at it again?

 

[lilelvis]

The big solar cabal at it again?

Follow the money..

 

[Helden]

Follow the money..

All seems to lead right into Exxon and BP CEOs bank accounts... Hmmmm, must be a coincidence

 

[dirtypablo]

Jesus, that's embarrassing. Someone can make it to the highest levels of government in this country, and still have about a 7th grade understanding of basic physical sciences.

 

[LeonardoBjj]

Schools close and crops wither as ‘historic’ heatwave hits south-east Asia​

Governments across region grappling for response as temperatures soar to unseasonable highs

Children play in portbale pools, a project from the local government, to beat the heat in Manila, Philippines. Photograph: Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images

Thousands of schools in the Philippines have stopped in-person classes due to unbearable heat. In Indonesia, prolonged dry weather has caused rice prices to soar. In Thailand’s waters, temperatures are so high that scientists fear coral could be destroyed.

A “historic heatwave” is being experienced across south-east Asia, according to Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist and weather historian. In updates posted on X, he said heat that was unprecedented for early April had been recorded at monitoring stations across the region this week, including in Minbu, in central Myanmar, where 44C was recorded – the first time in south-east Asia’s climatic history that such high temperatures had been reached so early in the month. In Hat Yai, in Thailand’s far south, 40.2 C was reached, an all-time record, while Yên Châu in north-west Vietnam hit 40.6C, unprecedented for this time of year.

The latest intense weather follows warnings last month by the World Meteorological Organization that the region had also been “gripped by severe heat conditions” in February when temperatures frequently soared into the high-30s – well above the seasonal average. It attributed the scorching weather to human-induced climate change, as well as the El Niño event, which brings hotter, drier conditions to the region.

“The level of heat the globe has experienced over the last 12 months, both on the land and in the ocean has surprised science,” said Prof Benjamin Horton, the director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore. “We always knew we were going to be headed in this direction with our increasing greenhouse gases, but the fact that we’re shattering all these records in 2023, and 2024, is perhaps slightly ahead of time.”

“We’re just not prepared. There’s very few, if any, places in the world that are resilient to this type of heat,” he said, adding that societies needed to adapt.

Governments across the region are grappling with how to respond. In the Philippines, almost 4,000 schools have suspended in-person classes as the heat index passed 42C in some areas, a dangerous level that the weather bureau warned could cause heat cramps and exhaustion.

During the Easter week in Manila, children played in portable pools set up in the streets to try to stay cool.

“Our classrooms are not resilient in this kind of weather. We have a ratio of one to 60-70 students in a classroom that does not have proper ventilation,” said Ruby Bernardo, the president of the teaching union the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) in the National Capital Region. In a recent survey by the union, 90% of teachers said they had just two fans in a classroom to stay cool.

Teachers also reported experiencing dizziness and headaches, and said students were unable to focus and, at worst, had suffered health problems, including nose bleeds. ACT has called for the school timetable to be shifted back to its pre-pandemic schedule, so that students are on breaks during the hottest months – something the government is gradually implementing. It also wants greater investment in hiring teachers and building more climate-resilient classrooms.

“This is not a long-term solution for them to always suspend classes or to have alternative or flexible learning during the [hot] season,” said Bernardo.

Horton said schools and businesses needed to find ways to adapt – by encouraging people to wear looser, comfortable clothing, and by shifting their schedules so that people were at work, and children educated, earlier or later in the day when temperatures were less intense. “Even if we made a snap choice today to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions we’re going to have to deal with [high temperatures] for at least 50 years,” he said, adding that greater effort was needed to educate the public on how and where to stay cool.

The intense heat has also caused havoc in agriculture. In Indonesia, which experienced prolonged dry weather last year, President Joko Widodo resorted to ordering the military to help farmers plant rice when rains finally arrived in December. The cost of rice, a staple food for the country’s 270 million people, rose more than 16% in February compared with last year, according to a Reuters report. Queues for government-subsidised rice have stretched for hours.

In Vietnam, water levels were so low in canals earlier this year that farmers in some areas reportedly struggled to transport their crops. In Thailand, a fall in crop yields will cause farmers’ debt to increase by 8% this year, according to economic analysis cited by the Bangkok Post. In Malaysia, authorities have deployed cloud seeding in areas affected by lack of rainfall.

Governments have issued health warnings advising people on how to avoid heatstroke, though many workers, especially those in sectors such as agriculture or construction, have little option but to endure the severe heat. In Malaysia in February, a 22-year-old man died due to heatstroke.

The effects of the extreme heat also extend into the region’s waters. Assistant professor Thon Thamrongnawasawat, of the faculty of fisheries at Kasetsart University in Thailand, warned this week on social media that El Niño combined with global warming risked destroying coral and fish in the Gulf of Thailand.

“When compared to the start of April in the previous year, in the eastern area, the water is substantially hotter. It’s strangely hot. Even at night, the temperature was a scorching 31.5 degrees,” he said.

“Travelling to Thailand’s seaside soon could become soaking up the sun and dip into onsen. That would be a new slogan,” he said.

If the heat continued for another two or three weeks, he feared coral bleaching could take place. Excessively heated water also threatened the life of fish in local fish farms, and risked creating huge debts for farmers.

There are ways to help, including by reducing global heating, alleviating problems such as marine pollution, caused by rubbish wastewater. “Even so, we still need to be ready to handle and adjust to such rare hot-water occurrences,” he said. “Prepare yourself. The real boiling sea has arrived.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...her-as-historic-heatwave-hits-south-east-asia