Tropics threaten the Earth

Earth’s extreme temperatures in July broke many records, with the first week seeing the highest average global temperature on record and climate experts predicting this month will be the hottest in thousands of years.
These days, from North America to Asia, from Europe to the Mediterranean Basin, hundreds of millions of people are suffering from unprecedented temperature increases and a hot summer that may be the hottest in modern history.
Temperatures in southern Algeria exceeded 60 degrees Celsius, causing forest fires that killed 34 people, including 10 soldiers; the temperature in Lebanon reached 35 degrees, the humidity dropped, and many fires broke out in mountainous and green forest areas. The temperature in Amman, the capital of Jordan, also rose sharply to 39 degrees Celsius, while the highest temperature in the “Gul Safi” area exceeded 46 degrees Celsius.
Yesterday, the temperature in the shade of the city center of Tunisia’s capital rose to 49 degrees Celsius, a record high, and the temperature in some parts of the country approached 50 degrees Celsius, six to ten degrees higher than usual. The village of “Malloula” in the “Jendouba” province in northwestern Tunisia was surrounded by fire, and dozens of families living in the area were evacuated. The local government announced that the fire in the area caused 150 injuries.
The Moroccan Meteorological Agency issued a red alert for extreme high temperatures in the southern part of the country on July 13, with maximum temperatures ranging from 44 to 49 degrees Celsius.
On the other side of the Mediterranean basin, Italy was one of the European countries worst hit by the heat, with temperatures reaching 44 degrees Celsius on Sardinia and red weather alerts issued for 20 of the country’s 27 major cities. Temperatures in Greece exceeded 40 degrees Celsius, forcing authorities to close the Acropolis and other ancient sites to tourists on July 14, and the country also faced a wave of forest fires that triggered the largest evacuation in Greek history. These included 19,000 people from Corfu’s beaches, while tourists packed Rhodes airport earlier this week after thousands fled their hotels and resorts.
Forest fires have been reported in La Palma, the northwesternmost region of Spain’s Canary Islands, where forest fires have been burning since July 15, displacing 4,000 residents and destroying 10,000 acres of land.
On the other side of the globe, in the western United States, Miami was the worst affected region in the world by the heat wave, and Phoenix, Arizona, also hit a record high. The state reached 43 degrees, while California and southern Nevada were also hit by severe heat waves, with more than 100 million people in much of the West receiving heat-related warnings and advisories. In the coming days, temperatures in the southern, western and central parts of the United States will continue to rise to record levels.
In neighboring Canada, high temperatures have sparked forest fires that have burned nearly 25 million acres of land so far, more than 100 people have died in Mexico this summer, and a remote town in China also saw high temperatures, reaching 52 degrees Celsius on July 16, breaking the previous record of 50 degrees Celsius set in 2015.
Temperatures in many parts of West Asian countries have also risen, exceeding 50 degrees Celsius. The Turkish Meteorological Department warned that the country will face a severe heat wave, saying: The hottest day of the week will be tomorrow, “On Wednesday and Thursday, temperatures in western and southern inland areas of Turkey will be between 40 and 45 degrees.
The Japan Meteorological Agency predicts that a severe heat wave will spread from the western part of the archipelago to large areas in the north, with temperatures exceeding 35 degrees Celsius.
On the other hand, massive flooding in India, China and South Korea, which has killed many people and displaced thousands, and hit much of the world with record high temperatures, is a decisive reminder that climate change is already here. It has become a terrifying reality that we must now prepare for.
Worse still, observers say, the latest forecasts from the World Meteorological Organization show that there will be no immediate relief for large parts of Europe and areas where temperatures are rising, with the possibility that the current heat wave, which killed nearly 61,000 people across Europe last summer, will continue until August next year.
A new study published today suggests that some of the highest temperatures recorded in different parts of the world would not have been possible without the impact of human-caused climate change, and warns that as long as humans continue to burn fossil fuels and emit more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, stressing that if we stop these activities, temperatures will stop rising but will not fall and turn cold.
Experts involved in preparing the study believe that dangerously high temperatures around the world are a loud warning that climate change is a global phenomenon, and extreme weather phenomena like the current ones will become more frequent and large-scale. Large-scale floods will occur, droughts and sea waves will hit, and deadly heat and floods caused by heavy rains will hit many areas, and these phenomena will occur more frequently than ever before.
Scientists have previously warned that the world must prepare for more severe heat waves than actually occurred, and pointed out that if the Earth violates the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit of global warming by 2030, the Earth’s ecosystem may suffer irreversible damage, which in turn will seriously affect humans and other organisms.