Record-Breaking Heatwaves: A Personal Perspective on Climate Crisis
A record-breaking hot September in many countries followed several months that were globally the hottest ever. Our planet experienced its hottest August in recorded history, sounding an urgent alarm for climate scientists and environmental campaigners alike. This unsettling record joins an ever-expanding catalog of worrying climate patterns that have become all too familiar in our daily lives.
Heatwaves and wildfires
Reflecting on my own experiences, I'm reminded of the scorching heat waves that blistered Spain during the summer of 2022. It was a season marked by relentless heat and the unprecedented disruption of my hiking plans due to wildfires that blocked my route. It was the first time I slept with an N95 mask as a feeble defense against the perilous fine particles from distant blazes.
It didn't work, and after a practically sleepless night, I got up before sunrise, studied the air-quality maps on my smartphone, and set out on a walking route toward cleaner air. It felt like an escape, and I'll never forget the paradox of admiring the beautiful sunrise in that dangerous, smoke-filled air. These events were weeks apart and in separate regions.
Last winter, I was in Ottawa, renowned for boasting the world's largest skating rink during its frigid winters. However, for the first time in memory, it remained closed to the public due to insufficient ice to support the tens of thousands of expected visitors.
In recent months, I've written about the record-breaking heatwaves that have swept the globe—June, July, August—and now, as national data are published, we witness a similar pattern with September's records shattered. Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, and Switzerland have just endured their hottest September, with unseasonably high temperatures stretching into October. This year appears destined to etch itself into history as one of the hottest ever recorded.
Cycling through the tropical September heat in Paris
I recall my stay in Paris last September, where I experienced the unbearable tropical heat in a city not designed to cope with such extremes. The most effective escape from the heat came from renting an electric bike, pedaling at breakneck speeds along the extensive cycling lanes through Haussmann's boulevards that have sprouted across the city in recent years. So, a climate change mitigation measure was inadvertently becoming my refuge from the ravages of global warming.
The September average temperature in France surged to 21.5°C, an astonishing 3.5°C to 3.6°C above the 1991-2020 reference period norm. This marked an unparalleled September, eclipsing past records by over 1°C. Some regions in France witnessed deviations from the three-decade September average exceeding a staggering 4°C, sometimes even reaching 6°C. This exceptional month shattered monthly records nationwide, with heatwave alerts in September surpassing the average temperatures of July and August.
Heat in Europe
Germany, too, grappled with its hottest September on record, with temperatures nearly 4°C higher than the 1961-1990 baseline. Belgium experienced a warmer September than July and August for the first time since 1961. Poland, Austria, and Switzerland mirrored this trend, reporting record-breaking September temperatures with deviations from the norm ranging between 3.6°C to 4°C.
These anomalies resulted from an unprecedented heatwave in the month's initial half, culminating in France's record-setting temperature of 38.8°C in September. These alarming trends are a stark reminder of climate change's relentless influence on European weather patterns.
What are your experiences?
I imagine many of you share similar stories of escalating extreme events in other parts of the world from your own lives in recent years. Conversations with individuals from diverse walks of life reveal a notable shift: pest control specialists dealing with new and invasive species, electricians installing home air conditioning where it once sufficed only in offices, and friends lamenting the scarcity of snow in Alpine winter resorts. On a positive note, Dutch vineyards now produce wine on my favorite island, in areas where we used to grow potatoes.
This year, global temperatures surged, aided by El Niño and the ongoing impact of human-induced climate change, following a year in which human activities injected more carbon into the atmosphere than ever before. This resulted in numerous regions grappling with record-breaking heatwaves, devastating wildfires, and extreme weather events. If these developments and daily news featuring dramatic footage fail to underscore the imperative of addressing climate change, one must wonder what could provoke our leaders to action.
Political will
It's not as though our leaders have been oblivious to the warnings about the dire repercussions of this warming trend, which have spanned decades. Leaders across democracies, dictatorships, and every shade of governance in between know that this record-breaking warming exacerbates our challenges, like rising sea levels, intensified storms, and ecological disruptions.
They also understand that it fuels food security, water scarcity, and public health concerns. Above all, they must all have received the many reports about the urgent need to phase out fossil fuels, transition to renewable energy sources, and implement sustainable practices to mitigate the consequences of global warming.
Each leader in every country can do their part to tackle the existential threat of climate change. We all know what needs to be done, we have the technology, and we know it can be financed, but it all hinges on our leaders' capacity to prioritize, cooperate, and show political will.
If you got this far, please read this too:
I write this newsletter because I believe that together we can do better on this beautiful but fragile planet.
If you are a paying subscriber: thank you for your support!
If you are not, please consider supporting this initiative by taking a paid subscription.
Biden's bold stand against Trump's MAGA extremism.
Today, President Biden mounted a broadside attack on former president Trump and his MAGA cult. He warned, "There is no question that today's Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists. Their extreme agenda, if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy a…
The Camino Experience: Exploring Nature, Climate Change, and Global Connections
Let me tell you about my third day on the Camino Frances, on the first of July, which I remember as a day with ideal walking conditions, neither scorching like last year during one of the heatwaves of that summer nor cold as just days earlier in the thick fog on the trail across the Pyrenees mountains.
Notes:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/weather/topstories/earth-just-had-its-warmest-august-on-record-spurring-dire-warnings/ar-AA1hxVUM
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/01/autumn-heat-continues-in-europe-after-record-breaking-september
This news comes on the heels of very disturbing events in governance in the USA 🇺🇸 as you have noted in prior newsletters. How do we move leaders including those in Congress to move to action rather than staying “stuck” in endless negotiations about 💰💰💰ongoing to another “deadline” on 11/17/2023? Many deny climate change even when it is obvious to voting citizens and especially the young who see their future lives in such peril. Do they have no vision forward at all that they continue to banter among each other, coming to no resolution on anything including who the leaders of governance are to be? I fear the stagnation in decision making most of all and know not how to change it. We continue to say “vote” yet more obstacles to that process arise every day on state levels as well as national. The wealthy including corporations must learn to live with less consumerism and more compassion for our fellow citizens of less means if we are to survive these cascading crises. Thank you for the updated factual information. We must continue to hope for resolution as difficult as it has become simply looking outside our homes to the skies and polluted air, deludges and alternately desertification around us, rising seas, polluted oceans, etc. We must come to agreements with one another that CLIMATE is our foremost priority or risk extinction.
You write : « Each leader in every country can do their part to tackle the existential threat of climate change. We all know what needs to be done, we have the technology, and we know it can be financed, but it all hinges on our leaders' capacity to prioritize, cooperate, and show political will. »
I want to see the positive effects of the planetary climate change and the positive reactions of everyone, be it a carpenter, a mechanic or a singer, to it.
You describe positive changes citing real remedies happening every day and every where like grape culture in the Netherlands and that’s reassuring. I also heard about it in Sweden. Adapting or changing is happening.
BUT, but, but ... there remains still many climate change deniers, those refusing to see or admit any natural evidence or there are also those modulating the extreme floodings and forest fires into normality...
We’re 10 million and elect our political representatives now in October, see what happens...