World Weather Attribution (WWA), a network for monitoring the impact of global warming on extreme events, says that almost every disaster they analyzed in the past 12 months has been exacerbated by climate change.
“The impact of global warming from the use of fossil fuels has never been clearer or more devastating than in 2024. We are living in a new, dangerous era,” said Friederike Otto, WWA’s chief climate scientist.
This year’s Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, where 1,300 people died as temperatures reached 51.8 degrees Celsius, is the best example of the heat problem.
Extreme heat, the so-called the ‘silent killer’, has also proved deadly in Thailand, India and the United States.
Conditions in Mexico were so intense that monkeys were falling dead from trees, while in Pakistan millions of children were kept from leaving their homes as the mercury soared above 50 degrees.
Greece recorded its earliest heat wave of the year, at the start of what was already Europe’s hottest summer on record. Fiery forest elements raged and tourist attractions such as the famous Acropolis were closed.
Climate change is not only manifested by high temperatures. Warmer oceans mean more evaporation, and warmer air absorbs more moisture, which is a recipe for heavy rains, which are also unpredictable.
In April, two years’ worth of rain fell in one day in the United Arab Emirates, turning parts of the otherwise desert country into seas and flooding Dubai International Airport.
Kenya had just come out of a once-in-a-generation drought when the worst floods in decades hit, so the East African country struggled with two opposite extremes one after the other, reports HINA.
Four million people are in need of aid after historic floods first killed more than 1,500 people across West and Central Africa. Europe, most notably Spain, also suffered massive downpours that caused deadly flash floods. Afghanistan, Russia, Brazil, China, Nepal, Uganda, India, Somalia, Pakistan, Burundi and the United States are among the other flooded countries in 2024.
Warmer ocean surfaces energize tropical cyclones as they move inland, contributing to fierce winds and enhancing their destructive potential.
Major hurricanes such as Milton, Beryl, and Helena hit the United States and the Caribbean in 2024, a year of above-average storm activity. The Philippines suffered six major storms in November alone, just two months after Typhoon Yagi swept through Southeast Asia.
In December, scientists estimated that global warming helped strengthen Cyclone Chino to a Category 4 storm when it slammed into Mayotte, devastating France’s already poorest overseas region.
While some regions are becoming wetter as climate change alters rainfall patterns, others are at increased risk of drought.
North and South America suffered severe drought, and wildfires ravaged millions of acres in the western United States, Canada and the Amazon basin, usually one of the rainiest places on Earth.
Between January and September, more than 400,000 fires were reported across South America, shrouding the continent in choking smoke.
The World Food Program (WFP) said in December that 26 million people across southern Africa were at risk of starvation as months of drought ravaged the already impoverished region.
Extreme weather conditions claimed thousands of lives in 2024 and left countless more people in desperate poverty. The lasting toll of such disasters is impossible to quantify. In terms of economic losses, Zurich-based insurer Swiss Re estimated global damages at $310 billion in a statement released in early December.
Floods in Europe, especially in the Spanish province of Valencia, where more than 200 people died in October, and hurricanes Helene and Milton further increased the material damage, the company said.
As of Nov. 1, the United States had suffered 24 severe weather events in 2024 with losses exceeding $1 billion each, government data show.
Drought in Brazil cost the agricultural sector $2.7 billion between June and August, while “climate challenges” pushed global wine production to its lowest level since 1961, industry sources said.
(Vijesti.ba)
www.vijesti.ba
