Record-breaking temperatures in 2019 had devastating effects on all regions and all living things. Here is a look at how the weather played havoc the whole year with devastating results.
It is alarming that scientists and researchers don’t need to give us proof of climate change being real now — nature has done that, increasingly so in the last decade, particularly last year.
In 2019, except for hardcore climate-change deniers such as politicians and business heads, everyone was concerned about the climatic events that affected them and countless others around the world.
Record-breaking temperatures had devastating effects on all regions and all living things. And currently, the bushfires raging in Australia are turning to ashes areas larger than many countries. The loss of wildlife and farm animals has been unprecedented, wiping up to 30% or more of the entire population.
Here is a look at how the weather played havoc the whole year with devastating results. While there have been many more unusual moods of climate witnessed in other places, these are the major ones that made news.
HEAT RECORDS
Hottest month on record — July 2019
According to the findings of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an American scientific agency that focuses on the conditions of the oceans and major waterways globally, “July was 1.71 degrees Fahrenheit (.95 degrees Celsius) warmer than the 20th century average of 60.4 F (15.8 C).”
Alaska, western Canada and Central Russia were among the places where most unusual temperatures were recorded — at least 3.6 F (2 C) higher than average, according to NOAA.
Warmest June ever recorded
June 2019 was the hottest June since the agency started keeping records 140 years ago. The month was “.71 degrees Fahrenheit (0.95 Celsius) above the average temperature for that month.”
Heat records in Europe
The heat wave that gripped much of Europe last June and July saw many records broken. The June 26 – 30, 2019, heat wave made it the hottest June in European history, while the July 23 – 27, 2019, heat wave was the most intense overall in European history.
Netherlands: According to the Netherlands Meteorological Institute, the 101.8 degrees Fahrenheit (38.8 C) temperature recorded on July 24 broke the nation’s all-time high temperature record that had stood unbroken for the last 75 years.
Belgium: This July 2019 heat spell also saw Belgium break its national heat record when temperatures reached 103.8 F (39.9 C), as reported by the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium.
France: France was also sizzling this summer. The astonishing 46°C (114.8°F) at Verargues in southern France on June 28, destroyed the previous all-time national heat record by 1.9°C (3.4°F). This late June heat wave set new records at various observation centres in eleven European nations — Poland, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Spain and Andorra.
The July 23 – 27 heat wave saw Montsouris observing site in Paris recording a temperature of 42.6°C (108.7°F), which was 4°F above the city’s 72-year-old all-time heat record. Likewise, the temperature during this period in Lille, a town in northern France, went up to 41.5°C (106.7°F), which was 5°F more than its previous all-time record.
ICE MELT RECORDS
Near-record melting of Arctic sea ice
Arctic’s “second warmest year on record” was 2019, according to NOAA’s 2019 Arctic Report Card. Only in 2012 was it lower, and the report further disclosed a disturbing trend — “13 lowest sea ice extents in the satellite record have all occurred in the last 13 years: 2007 – 2019.” Satellite observations of Arctic sea ice began in 1979.
Researches further fear that “the odds of seeing an ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer will rise to about 50% by the late 2030s” at the current rate of emissions.
Greenland’s melting ice sheet
The ice loss from Greenland led to an estimated “0.7 mm/year of sea level rise to the world’s oceans — about 20% of the current 3.3 mm/year sea level rise”, according to 2019 Arctic Report Card.
The effects of even this small amount of sea level rise can be understood better when considered in the light of an interview given by Andrew Shepherd, a University of Leeds professor who co-led the research, in Washington Post. He said, “Around the planet, just one centimetre of sea-level rise brings another six million people into seasonal, annual floods.”
FIRE FURY
Unprecedented fires in the Arctic
With temperatures in the Arctic rising at a faster rate than the global average, more than 600 wildfires burned across more than 2.4 million acres of forest in Alaska last summer. Fires also engulfed northern Canada too.
It is believed that last year’s fires in Alaska were driven by “an intense early-season heat wave”, according to Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), which provides data about atmospheric composition and emissions.
Scientists blame climate change for the occurrence of more wildfires, which in turn add to the climate crisis by releasing more carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. And an estimated 100 megatons of carbon dioxide was released between 1 June and 21 July 2019, as a result of these fires.
Dr Claudia Volosciuk, a scientist with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), said in a report on CNN, “Wildfires are also exacerbating global warming by releasing pollutants into the atmosphere. When particles of smoke land on snow and ice, [they] cause the ice to absorb sunlight that it would otherwise reflect, and thereby accelerate the warming in the Arctic.”
AUSTRALIA’S SUMMER OF BUSH FIRES
Record-breaking temperatures in 2019 and drought-like conditions since the last couple of years. provided the perfect conditions for brush fires that are still raging in Australia.
An estimated 10 million hectares (100,000 sq km or 15.6 million acres) of bush, forest and parks across Australia has burned, with the states of New South Wales and Victoria being the worst affected. More than a billion mammals have perished in the blazes and their aftermath and there are a couple of months of summer still left and little sign of the fires being in control.
Smokes from the fires have covered the skies there for weeks and have even disturbed the air quality level in New Zealand. On December 9, Sydney’s air pollution levels, or Air Quality Index (or AQI), was 11 times that of the hazardous level.
In December, the all-time high temperature record in Australia was broken — 17 December’s average maximum was 40.9C, a day later the mercury went higher with 41.9C, both being higher that 2013’s record of 40.3C.
By the end of December, every state in Australia had experienced temperatures above 40C!
Featured photo credit: Luiza Giannellion/Unsplash
