The heat waveslike the one currently suffocating Europe and in other regions of the planet, their intensity and duration are increasing and in certain areas they could become a permanent phenomenon due to climate change, a UN specialist warned.
The “heat dome” – a phenomenon that, due to the stagnation of air masses, overheats the atmosphere – that covers much of Europe, the heat-induced wildfires that devastate Greece, Spain, Portugal, Canada and Hawaii, or the extreme high temperatures in the middle of the South American winter have made headlines in recent weeks.
“Heat waves will become increasingly intense and frequent”declared AFP John Nairn, an expert on extreme heat at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), based in Geneva.
“It is the consequence of global warming that we see appearing very quickly in weather systems,” he added, emphasizing that scientists have been warning about this.
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“People are too relaxed about the plates,” he complained. “Science warned that this would happen. And it doesn’t stop here. It will be more intense and more frequent.”
stationary heat
John Nairn recommends that we turn our attention to the continued rise in nighttime minimum temperatures and not in daytime heat records, making headlines.
High and repeated night temperatures are especially dangerous for human health, as the body is unable to recover from the heat during the day. Higher nighttime lows also mean that energy stored during the day has nowhere to go, further raising temperatures the next day.
That’s how we arrive “longer periods of temperatures raised”the scientist noted and assured that the situation threatens to worsen.
The expert is particularly concerned about the situation in regions such as South America, which have reached heat records in recent weeks, with temperatures of up to 40ºC in the supposed winter.
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In the future “We will see more heat waves over a much longer period of the year.” In tropical and subtropical regions, “unfortunately, all evidence points to severe and extreme heat waves threatening to strike any time (of the year) before the end of the century.”
When asked what we can do, John Nairn estimated, “We all have the ability to reverse the trend.”
“We need to bring everything to electricity (…) and stop burning fossil fuels. It doesn’t get any more complex than that.”. (JO)
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Source: Eluniverso
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