Adapted by:
Javier Jiménez
Senior WriterHead of science, health, and environment at Xataka. Methodologist turned communicator, I write about science, ideas and social change.
Karen Alfaro
WriterCommunications professional with a decade of experience as a copywriter, proofreader, and editor. As a travel and science journalist, I've collaborated with several print and digital outlets around the world. I'm passionate about culture, music, food, history, and innovative technologies.
“We are witnessing something unbelievable. [It’s] by far the most extreme event in world climatic history. Several thousands of records are being brutalized from North Africa all over Asia with margins never seen before,” Max Herrera, one of the world’s leading public experts on extreme weather events, said.
And if you look at some of the maps, he’s right.
The best example is Kuwait. According to preliminary data, the Kuwaiti city of Mitribah exceeded 114.8 degrees Fahrenheit in April for the first time in history. Right after that, it exceeded 116.6, then 118.4, and finally approached 120.2.
This isn’t an isolated event. More than 113 degrees in Egypt, India, and the Middle East; 113 also in Sudan, 114.2 in Chad, and 113.9 in Niger. The records of Central Asia have been completely shattered. These are absurdly high temperatures for the 30th parallel at this time of year. In the case of Mitribah, these figures are very close to the historical maximum ever reached.
In addition, the heat wave stretches across three continents. And, as Herrera says, everything indicates that the situation is worsening.
What’s happening? That’s the big question. Because heat waves never happen in isolation. They have serious social consequences—more aggression, more violence, more crime, more homicides—in areas of the world that are already powder kegs: Syria, Israel, Ukraine, and Sudan.
The problem is that experts don’t know why this is happening. The same atmospheric dynamics that produced an unusually wet March and a much cooler-than-usual spring are now driving heat waves across much of Central Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
After all, in meteorology, air masses are pieces that perform a strategic dance with each other. Changes in one part of the world affect the rest.
An increasingly uncertain future. I don’t know if Herrera is right and we’re experiencing one of the most extreme meteorological phenomena in recorded history. But it’s clear the situation is only getting more complicated—not just because things are changing so fast, but because we don’t know where we’re going.
Images | fabian jones (Unsplash) |Tropical Tidbits
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