This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including NOAA’s hurricane season predictions and an unusually early, deadly heatwave scorching Europe.
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1. ‘Absolutely Astonishing’: Unusually Early, Deadly Heatwave Scorches Western Europe
Several western European countries are baking under record-breaking heat this week that is highly unusual this time of year.
The heatwave is the result of a phenomenon known as a heat dome – where warm air from Northern Africa is trapped under a high-pressure system over Western Europe, lingering for days. It works like a lid on a pot, trapping hot air underneath.
The UK set a new daily heat record for May on Monday and again on Tuesday, when temperatures reached 35.1C in London. Climate change is dramatically increasing the frequency of extreme high temperatures in the UK, according to the UK’s Met Office. Peaks of 30C used to be a rare occurrence in the country, and exceptionally rare in May – reached only a handful of times since 1900.
France is also baking in record-breaking heat, with 36C recorded in the country’s southwest on Monday and 35.8C in Vendée in western France on Tuesday. Temperatures there climbed as much as 13C above seasonal norms over the weekend. Meteo-France, the national weather agency, called the early, intense, and prolonged heatwave “remarkable” as it warned of potential peaks of 38C or even 39C on Thursday.
Nighttime heat was also at an “unprecedented level of mildness” in recent days, the agency said.
Heat is one of the clearest signs of the climate crisis. Every heatwave in the world is now stronger and more likely to happen because of human-caused climate change, which is primarily driven by greenhouse gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.
Full story here.
2. El Niño to Spur Above-Average Hurricane Season in Eastern and Central Pacific, NOAA Says
The central and eastern Pacific is likely to see above-average hurricane activity this year owing to the development of El Niño conditions, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said last week.
The US agency released its Atlantic and eastern and central Pacific hurricane season outlooks on Thursday, predicting a 55% chance of below-average hurricane activity in the former and a 70% chance of above-average activity in the latter.
In March, weather forecasters, including NOAA, predicted a high chance of an El Niño event developing later this year. The global climatic phenomenon, which occurs every two to seven years on average, is associated with the warming of sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. When this happens, the east-to-west trade winds die, keeping warmer than the normal air in the eastern and central parts of the tropical Pacific.
The powerful shifts in Pacific winds and water temperatures can transform global weather patterns, increasing the likelihood of severe droughts in places like Australia and Southeast Asia and heavy floods in parts of the US and East Africa.
They also influence the formation of hurricanes, which are fueled and made more destructive by higher sea surface temperatures. Sea surface temperatures are on the rise globally as El Niño looms. Last month, they neared record levels in the Pacific and the extra-polar oceans.
Full story here.
3. Global Temperatures Likely to Breach Record Levels Over Next 5 Years, WMO Says
The Earth is on track to keep warming at or near record levels in the five years as chances of keeping global temperatures below the Paris Agreement 1.5C goal fade.
The latest edition of an annual report on the state of the climate by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) predicts global yearly mean near-surface temperatures to be between 1.3C and 1.9C higher than the average for the 1850-1900 period, or pre-industrial period, between now and 2030. The global mean near-surface temperature refers to the combined average of air temperatures near the Earth’s surface and sea-surface temperatures.
The UN agency also said there is a 91% chance that global average temperatures will exceed 1.5C above the 1850-1900 average levels for at least one year between 2026 and 2030.
Full story here.
4. UK Climate Adviser Calls for Rapid Expansion of Air Conditioning As Climate Crisis Intensifies
British homes will need air conditioning to survive predicted levels of global warming, a major report has warned.
An estimated 4 million homes in the country now have air conditioning, double the figure from three years ago, the Guardian recently reported. But that is not enough to protect people from rapidly rising temperatures and what are becoming more frequent and intense heatwaves, the Climate Change Committee, the UK’s independent climate change adviser, said in the report.
The Committee estimated that some 92% of existing homes are likely to overheat during a heatwave, disproportionately threatening those most vulnerable to heat. Among them are children, the elderly, pregnant women, as well as those living in inadequate or poorly ventilated housing.
“The UK was built for a climate that no longer exists today and will be increasingly distant in years to come,” it said, as it urged the country to prepare for warming levels 2C above pre-industrial levels by mid-century. The world is currently on track for 2.6-3.1C of warming over the course of this century, according to UN estimates.
Full story here.
