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Category: Global Heating
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GLOBAL HEATING Climate Change Is Making Fires Worse......Climate change is one of the major drivers behind increasing fire activity. Extreme heat waves are already 5 times more likely today than they were 150 years ago and are expected to become even more frequent as the planet continues to warm. Hotter temperatures dry out the landscape and help create the perfect environment for larger, more frequent forest fires. When forests burn, they release carbon that is stored in the trunks, branches and leaves of trees, as well as carbon stored underground in the soil. As forest fires become larger and happen more often, they emit more carbon, further exacerbating climate change and contributing to more fires as part of a "fire-climate feedback loop." This feedback loop, combined with the expansion of human activities into forested areas, is driving much of the increase in fire activity we see today. As climate-fueled forest fires burn larger areas, they will affect more people and impact the global economy.

Rising Temperatures Are Fueling Fires in Boreal Forests.......More than 60% of all fire-related tree cover loss between 2001 and 2024 occurred in boreal regions. Though fire is a natural part of how boreal forests function ecologically, fire-related tree cover loss in these areas has risen rapidly, increasing by about 160,100 hectares per year over the last 24 years. Climate change is the main reason for this. Northern high-latitude regions are warming at a faster rate than the rest of the planet, contributing to longer fire seasons, greater fire frequency and severity, and larger burned areas in boreal forests. Russia, for example, had its three worst fire seasons on record between 2020 and 2024. 2021 was the most severe, with at least 5.4 million hectares of forest burned. This was due in part to prolonged heatwaves that would have been practically impossible without human-induced climate change. In Canada, record-breaking wildfires burned almost 7.8 million hectares of forest in 2023; about 6 times the country's annual average for 2001-2022. The flames were largely fueled by warmer than average temperatures and drought conditions, with some parts of the country experiencing temperatures up to 10 degrees C (18 degrees F) above normal. The trend continued in 2024, with over 4 million hectares of forest burned. And Canada's 2025 fire season was off to its second-worst start as of July, based on fire alert data going back to 2001. This trend is worrying for several reasons.

Boreal forests store 30%-40% of all land-based carbon, making them critical climate stabilizers. Most of this carbon is stored underground, including in permafrost, and has historically been protected from the infrequent and milder fires that occur naturally. But changes in climate and fire activity are melting permafrost and making soil carbon more vulnerable to burning. In addition, severe fires can drastically alter the structure of boreal forests — effectively eliminating coniferous species like black spruce, which normally dominate the landscape, and allowing deciduous trees to take their place. Such changes could have wide-ranging impacts on biodiversity, soil dynamics, fire behavior, carbon sequestration and cultural traditions. In some extreme cases, trees may fail to regrow at all. These shifting forest dynamics could eventually turn boreal forests from a carbon sink (an area that absorbs more carbon than it emits) into a source of carbon emissions. In fact, recent research shows that boreal forests are already losing their ability to store carbon.

El Niño and Tropical Forest Fires In addition to climate and land-use changes, wildfire risk in the tropics is further fueled by El Niño events. These natural climate cycles recur every 2-7 years, causing high temperatures and below-average rainfall in parts of the world. El Niño heavily influenced the 2016 and 2024 fire seasons; two of the most severe since 2001. In both years, more than one-quarter of all fire-related tree cover loss occurred in tropical forests, roughly twice the average share seen in non-El Niño years.....read on  https://www.wri.org/insights/global-trends-forest-fires

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Category: Global Heating
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 Extreme heat is a killer. A recent heat wave shows how much more deadly it’s becoming.CNN- News Report 30 June 2025 Extreme heat is a killer and its impact is becoming far, far deadlier as the human-caused climate crisis supercharges temperatures, according to a new study, which estimates global warming tripled the number of deaths in the recent European heat wave. For more than a week, temperatures in many parts of Europe spiked above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Tourist attractions closed, wildfires ripped through several countries, and people struggled to cope on a continent where air conditioning is rare. 
The outcome was deadly. Thousands of people are estimated to have lost their lives, according to a first-of-its-kind rapid analysis study published Wednesday. A team of researchers, led by Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, looked at 10 days of extreme heat between June 23 and July 2 across 12 European cities, including London, Paris, Athens, Madrid and Rome. They used historical weather data to calculate how intense the heat would have been if humans had not burned fossil fuels and warmed the world by 1.3 degrees Celsius. They found climate change made Europe’s heat wave 1 to 4 degrees Celsius (1.8 to 7.2 Fahrenheit) hotter. The scientists then used research on the relationship between heat and daily deaths to estimate how many people lost their lives. They found approximately 2,300 people died during ten days of heat across the 12 cities, around 1,500 more than would have died in a world without climate change. In other words, global heating was responsible for 65% of the total death toll. “The results show how relatively small increases in the hottest temperatures can trigger huge surges in death,” the study authors wrote.
Heat has a particularly pernicious impact on people with underlying health conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes and respiratory problems. People over 65 years old were most affected, accounting for 88% of the excess deaths, according to the analysis. But heat can be deadly for anyone. Nearly 200 of the estimated deaths across the 12 cities were among those aged 20 to 65.....read on  https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/09/climate/europe-heat-wave-death-toll-global-warming 

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Category: Global Heating
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Heat waves are becoming ever more extreme in many places around the world. Sweltering hot temperatures are putting a strain on our bodies, disrupting society and crippling our infrastructure. Can the world adapt ? DW Sarah Steffen July 2, 2025 Too hot to handle: Is this heat the new normal? People the world over are struggling with sweltering hot temperatures fueled by climate change. The summer's first heat wave has a firm grip on southern Europe, parts of the US and the UK.  Temperatures in southern Spain reached 46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit) on Saturday, which is a new record for June, the national weather agency said. Barcelona has also set a new record for its hottest month of June ever recorded.  Authorities along the Mediterranean have urged people to seek shelter from the heat. France and Italy, among others, have dispatched ambulances near tourist hotspots to treat people suffering from heatstroke. Fires fed by the heat and strong winds broke out on Sunday in France and Turkey, while Greece and Italy have also been fighting fires connected to unusually hot and dry conditions. Last week, Chinese authorities issued their second-highest heat warning for the capital Beijing and other regions on one of its hottest days of the year so far. The World Meteorological Organziation (WMO) says Asia is heating up more than twice as fast as the rest of the world due to its large landmass.

What's the impact of heat on people and societies? Heat waves are the deadliest type of extreme weather globally, with hundreds of thousands of people dying from heat-related causes annually. Among the particularly vulnerable are people over 65, pregnant women, children and those with chronic or underlying health conditions.  The first early-season heat waves are particularly deadly, since people are often less prepared and their bodies haven't yet grown accustomed to higher temperatures. There are three main physical risks associated with heat waves: dehydration, overheating, as well as heat exhaustion and heatstroke.  Severe heat does not only impact the body, but also disrupts society as we know it. 
The UN's children's fund UNICEF says one in 5 minors — that's close to half a billion in total — live in areas that experience at least twice as many extremely hot days per year as they did six decades ago. Many don't have the infrastructure — such as air-conditioning — to help them cope. In May, Pakistan experienced a nationwide heat wave that saw temperatures hit 45 degrees Celsius in the country's most populous province of Punjab. Several others cut school hours or started summer holidays early. Heat waves have also disrupted schooling in South Sudan and the Philippines this year. Equally, extreme heat impacts when people can work. Some countries in hotter parts of the world traditionally take a midday "siesta" break. Now, others in ordinarily cooler places are also talking about how to manage working hours when temperatures soar. Infrastructure such as roads, railways and bridges are impacted by runaway heat. Standard asphalt road surfaces not made for hot weather tend to rut and can literally melt, while railway tracks can buckle, and bridges can expand and deform......read on and don't forget to click on the last photo in this article for more photos and text 

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Category: Global Heating
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Global temperatures could break heat records in the next five years. Guardian  Jonathan Watts Wed 28 May 2025. The data from the past decade shows definitively that climate change is not a future problem,” said John Denton, secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), which commissioned the report. “Major productivity losses from extreme weather events are being felt in the here and now by the real economy.” The report found a gradual upward trend in the cost of extreme weather events between 2014 and 2023, with a spike in 2017 when an active hurricane season battered North America. The US suffered the greatest economic losses over the 10-year period, at $935bn, followed by China at $268bn and India at $112bn. Germany, Australia, France and Brazil all made the top 10.  On a population basis, small islands such as Saint Martin and the Bahamas saw the greatest losses. Fire, water, wind and heat have wiped more and more dollars off government balance sheets as the world has grown richer, people have settled in disaster-prone regions, and fossil fuel pollution has baked the planet.
But until recent years, scientists struggled to estimate the extent of the role that humans played by warping extreme weather events with planet-heating gas. Data also shows small but ‘shocking’ likelihood of year 2C hotter than preindustrial era before 2030.
 
There is an 80% chance that global temperatures will break at least one annual heat record in the next five years, raising the risk of extreme droughts, floods and forest fires, a new report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has shown.For the first time, the data also indicated a small likelihood that before 2030, the world could experience a year that is 2C hotter than the preindustrial era, a possibility scientists described as “shocking”. Coming after the hottest 10 years ever measured, the latest medium-term global climate update highlights the growing threat to human health, national economies and natural landscapes unless people stop burning oil, gas, coal and trees. The update, which synthesises short-term weather observations and long-term climate projections, said there was a 70% chance that five-year average warming for 2025-2029 will be more than 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

 

This would put the world perilously close to breaking the most ambitious target of the Paris Agreement, an international climate change treaty, though that goal is based on an average over 20 years. It also reported an 86% likelihood that 1.5C would be passed in at least one of the next five years, up from 40% in the 2020 report. In 2024, the 1.5C threshold was breached on an annual basis for the first time – an outcome that was considered implausible in any of the five-year predictions before 2014. Last year was the hottest in the 175-year observational record. Underscoring how rapidly the world is warming, even 2C is now appearing as a statistical possibility in the latest update, which is compiled by 220 ensemble members from models contributed by 15 different institutes, including the UK’s Met Office, Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, and Deutscher Wetterdienst. The likelihood of 2C before 2030 is tiny – about 1% – and would require a convergence of multiple warming factors, such as a strong El Niño and positive Arctic Oscillation, but it was previously considered impossible in a five-year timeframe......read on. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/28/global-temperatures-break-annual-heat-record-next-five-years-world-meteorological-organization

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Category: Global Heating
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Global temperatures could break heat records in the next five years. Data also shows small but ‘shocking’ likelihood of year 2C hotter than preindustrial era before 2030.Guardian  Jonethan Watts 24 May 2025 There is an 80% chance that global temperatures will break at least one annual heat record in the next five years, raising the risk of extreme droughts, floods and forest fires, a new report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has shown.For the first time, the data also indicated a small likelihood that before 2030, the world could experience a year that is 2C hotter than the preindustrial era, a possibility scientists described as “shocking”. Coming after the hottest 10 years ever measured, the latest medium-term global climate update highlights the growing threat to human health, national economies and natural landscapes unless people stop burning oil, gas, coal and trees. The update, which synthesises short-term weather observations and long-term climate projections, said there was a 70% chance that five-year average warming for 2025-2029 will be more than 1.5C above preindustrial levels.

This would put the world perilously close to breaking the most ambitious target of the Paris Agreement, an international climate change treaty, though that goal is based on an average over 20 years. It also reported an 86% likelihood that 1.5C would be passed in at least one of the next five years, up from 40% in the 2020 report. In 2024, the 1.5C threshold was breached on an annual basis for the first time – an outcome that was considered implausible in any of the five-year predictions before 2014. Last year was the hottest in the 175-year observational record. Underscoring how rapidly the world is warming, even 2C is now appearing as a statistical possibility in the latest update, which is compiled by 220 ensemble members from models contributed by 15 different institutes, including the UK’s Met Office, Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis, and Deutscher Wetterdienst. The likelihood of 2C before 2030 is tiny – about 1% – and would require a convergence of multiple warming factors, such as a strong El Niño and positive Arctic Oscillation, but it was previously considered impossible in a five-year timeframe......read on. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/28/global-temperatures-break-annual-heat-record-next-five-years-world-meteorological-organization

 
 

More Articles …

  1. Fires drove Record Loss of World’s Forests in 2024
  2. Extreme Weather is our New Reality. We Must Accept it and Begin Planning. 
  3. Global Heating ‘doubled’ Chance of Extreme Rain in Europe in September.
  4. Silent Killer-  How Cities Are Bracing For More Heat

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