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A man stands under a mister to cool off from the heat in Montreal, Canada, September 6, 2023. /CFP
A man stands under a mister to cool off from the heat in Montreal, Canada, September 6, 2023. /CFP
Eastern Canada shattered heat records this week with temperatures close to 30 degrees Celsius, worrying experts and everyday people struggling to cope with extreme weather made worse by climate change.
“It’s unheard of for a day in October,” said Environment Canada meteorologist Jean-Philippe Begin. “It’s normal to have occasional warm spells, but extreme heat like this is very unusual.”
The last three days heat records were broken in Quebec and adjacent provinces. On Wednesday the mercury reached 29.3 degrees Celsius in Montreal, surpassing the record of 26.7 degrees set in 2005.
“It feels strange, especially in Canada,” said French tourist Christine Boileau.
A pigeon takes a shower in a dog water bowl amid record temperatures in Toronto, Canada, October 3, 2023. /CFP
A pigeon takes a shower in a dog water bowl amid record temperatures in Toronto, Canada, October 3, 2023. /CFP
Temperatures are set to return to seasonal norms over the weekend, with snow forecast for some northern parts of Canada, according to Begin.
But he warned that extreme weather events, including heat waves, will become more frequent and hit harder with time.
It’s the same around the world as temperatures keep breaking records. After a sweltering summer and an unseasonably warm September, this year is expected to be the hottest in human history.
Global average temperatures from January to September were 1.4 degrees Celsius higher than 1850-1900, almost breaching the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement, the Copernicus Climate Change Service said in a report released on Thursday.
The January-September average global temperature was 0.05 degrees Celsius higher than the same nine-month period in 2016, the warmest year recorded so far.
The El Nino phenomenon – which warms waters in the southern Pacific and stokes hotter weather beyond – is likely to see 2023 become the hottest year on record in the next three months.
Scientists expect the worst effects of the current El Nino to be felt at the end of 2023 and into next year.
(If you have specific expertise and want to contribute, or if you have a topic of interest that you’d like to share with us, please email us at nature@cgtn.com.)
Source(s): AFP
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