Portugal
broke local temperature records Friday as the mercury climbed to 45
degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit): Worse is to come
4
August, 2018
Eight
places in Portugal broke local temperature records Friday as a wave
of heat from North Africa swept across the Iberian peninsula - and
officials predicted the scorching temperatures could get even worse
over the weekend.
Temperatures
built to around 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) Friday in
many inland areas of Portugal and were expected to peak at 47 C
(116.6 F) in some places Saturday.
Large
sections of Portugal are on red alert on the Civil Protection
Agency's danger scale.
The
highest temperature recorded Thursday, when the heat began to rise,
was 45.2 C (113.4 F) near Abrantes, a town 150 kilometres (93 miles)
northeast of the capital, Lisbon, the country's weather agency IPMA
said.
Portugal's
highest recorded temperature was 47.4 C (117.3 F) in 2003.
Emergency
services have issued a red alert through Sunday, placing extra
services such as medical staff and firefighters on standby.
In
Portugal's southern Alentejo province, streets were largely deserted.
Some
farmers chose to work during the night instead of in the heat of the
day.
Beaches
around Lisbon, the capital, were packed.
Some
400 firefighters and five water-dropping aircraft, meanwhile, were
battling a wildfire in southern Portugal's Algarve region.
Portugal
sees large wildfires every year, although unseasonably cool weather
through the end of July has meant fewer blazes in 2018.
The
government says only about 15 per cent of the 10-year average area
has been charred so far this year.
Temperatures
were being driven higher across the Iberian peninsula by a hot air
mass moving northward from Africa, which is also bringing dust from
the Sahara Desert, meteorologists said.
The
dust gave the sky a dark yellow hue in some places.
In
Spain, heat warnings were also issued for 41 of the country's 50
provinces as temperatures were expected to reach up to 44 C (111.2
F).
Spain's
highest recorded temperature is 46.9 C (116.42 F) in Cordoba, a
southern city, in July 2017. The World Meteorological Organization
says continental Europe's record is 48 C (118.4 F) in Greece in 1977.
The
singular Himalayan ecosystem may just break down with devastating
results for India’s Uttarakhand region
The
Himalayas represent a dynamic, changing landscape. The roles played
by tectonic and climate forces in making it what it is are evident. A
product of millions of years of crustal shortening, the Himalayas
sustain the brunt of geological stresses leading to great earthquakes
on occasion and more frequent moderate earthquakes. A dynamic
balance, however, exists between the forces that help raise the
mountain and the opposing erosive forces like glaciers and rivers
that wear it down.
One
can also glimpse the contrasting external extremes of glory and
squalor in the mountains - the wretched human existence in those
villages amidst the uplifting beauty of the distant snow-clad peaks.
The writer Bill Aitken, who travelled extensively in the Himalayas,
has remarked that “the art of beholding the Himalaya lies in
accepting the paradox of aesthetic wealth alongside economic poverty,
of reconciling the glory of aliveness with the evenly poised
mischance of death.”
The
earthquakes, avalanches and floods are part of recurrent natural
processes, which can turn into natural disasters because of the
impact they will have on the unplanned settlements in ecologically
sensitive regions. The greater intensity of any calamity - be it an
earthquake or a massive flood - is proportional to the population
density and the level of expansion of construction activities in the
vulnerable areas. The irony is that, in spite of the so-called
developmental spree, the majority of the local population continues
to live in abject poverty constrained by the depletion of natural
resources.
Water
levels at storages supplying the Sydney metropolitan area are sinking
amid a lack of rain and rising consumption, bringing the prospect of
a restart of the Sydney Desalination Plant.
The
total storage levels for the Sydney region are running at about
two-thirds full, with the desalination plant set to be turned on to
supplement the water supply when capacity drops to 60 per cent,
according to WaterNSW.
The
Trump administration has proposed a rollback of Obama-era fuel
efficiency and emissions standards, while simultaneously taking aim
at California's unique ability to set more stringent rules.
Under
the Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency called
for the fuel economy standards for new vehicles to ratchet up over
time. The increasingly strict standards were designed to combat
climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
On
Thursday, the EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration released a new proposed rule that would instead freeze
the standards at their 2020 levels for six years.
The
Trump administration has overturned bans on the use of pesticides
linked to declining bee populations and the cultivation of
genetically modified crops in US national wildlife refuges.
The
move, reversing a policy adopted in 2014, has attracted heavy
criticism from environmentalists.
It
was announced in a memo by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Deadly
heat waves are breaking records and making headlines around the world
this summer, but they have nothing on the heat waves that the North
China Plain is likely to see in the future if we don't act now to
combat climate change.
A
study published in Nature Communications Tuesday found that if we do
nothing to curb emissions, China's most populous and agriculturally
important region could see heat waves deadly even for healthy people
by 2100.
"China
is currently the largest contributor to the emissions of greenhouse
gases, with potentially serious implications to its own population:
Continuation of the current pattern of global emissions may limit
habitability of the most populous region of the most populous country
on Earth," study authors Elfatih A. B. Eltahir of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Suchul Kang of the
Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology wrote.
Kebnekaise glacier melts as Europe prepares for hottest day
Arctic
reindeer sought shade in road tunnels, Sweden’s biggest glacier
melted and France faced a snail shortage as Europe prepared for the
hottest day since records began.
Hot
air from Africa is bringing a new heatwave to Europe, which
forecasters say could break records as the continent continues to
swelter.
Health
warnings have been issued about Sahara Desert dust and exceptionally
high temperatures that are forecast to peak at 47 degrees Celsius
(116.6 Fahrenheit) in some southern areas.
The
UK Met Office said parts of the Iberian peninsula could beat the
all-time continental European record of 48 degrees Celsius (118.4
degrees Fahrenheit) this week, with inland areas likely to be hotter
than the coast.
That
record was set in the Greek capital, Athens, in July 1977. According
to the World Meteorological Organization, the record for Spain is
currently 47.3 Celsius, while for Portugal it's 47.4 Celsius.
Mounting
science is painting a very bleak picture of a future of soaring
temperatures, and the accompanying death toll those soaring
temperatures will demand.
New
research has given us the first solid prediction of how more
heatwaves like the one that's struck Europe this year will affect
future death rates, finding tropical heatwaves in some areas could
one day send the mortality rate skyrocketing by as much as 2,000
percent.
As
temperatures climb, bodies overheat, and the chances of harsh
environmental conditions (such as smog) go up. Neither is good for
our health, and frequent summer heatwaves can often be too much for
some people to bear.
Smoke from the wildfires now covers
about half of the United States
The
Arctic Circle — the realm of polar bears and dwindling sea ice at
the top of the world — hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit, 32 degrees
Celsius, this week.
This
was the temperature in Banak, Norway on July 30, though some
Norwegian areas even reached a couple degrees warmer, according to
the European meteorology site severe-weather.eu. Banak sits atop
northern Europe, over 350 miles above the bottom edge of the Arctic
Circle.
Heatwave
affecting parts of southern Europe reaches new intensity, with
temperatures rising to 45C
In
the latest phase of a summer of extreme weather that has brought
blistering heat to Britain, drought to the Netherlands and deadly
wildfires to Greece, the heatwave affecting parts of southern Europe
has reached a new intensity this weekend. According to IPMA, the
Portuguese weather agency, about a third of the country’s
meteorological stations broke temperature records on Saturday. The
highest was 46.4C in Alvega, 120km from Lisbon.
In
the southern Algarve, more than 700 firefighters battled a forest
fire that had spread across 1,000 hectares near the town of
Monchique; in the capital, Lisbon, the usually busy terrace cafes of
the Chiado district were quiet as people stayed indoors. And in
Amareleja, a sleepy town as famous for its hot summers as for its
full-bodied red wines, the large outdoor thermometer at the Farmácia
Portugal read 44.5C just after midday. Petrol station attendant
Joaquim, however, was not fazed: the past couple of days had been
abnormal, he said, but locals were “used to the heat and know how
to adapt”.
They
appeared to be adapting by simply staying indoors: there was little
sign of life in the town centre. In nearby Moura and district capital
Beja, streets usually at their busiest on the first Saturday of the
month were mostly deserted. Further afield, flocks of sheep jostled
for spots in the shade of the olive and carob trees that dot the
parched fields. Cows stood motionless in the baking heat.
The
high temperatures in Portugal and Spain are caused by a plume of warm
air from the Sahara, which yesterday turned the sky an eerie orange
in places, including above Amareleja.
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