The gates of hell have opened

It shows that last year was the hottest in history, and the world has never been so close to crossing the global warming limit of 1.5 degrees C.

The climate will continue to warm, making life more dangerous, unpredictable and more expensive, warns Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London.

On Sunday, March 17, in Rio de Janeiro the air temperature reached 40.4 degrees Celsius, and the perceived temperature was a record 62.3 degrees Celsius. This is the highest temperature felt in the decade since measurements began. The previous record was set in November 2023 and amounted to 59.7 degrees Celsius. Moreover, according to the latest report of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), 2023 was definitely the warmest year in history.

According to the data, "records in key indicators have been broken again," including greenhouse gas pollution, surface temperature, ocean heat and acidification, sea level rise.

Andrea Celeste Saulo, WMO secretary-general, said the organisation was "signalling a red alert to the world." Last year temperatures near the earth's surface were 1.45 degrees Celsius higher than at the end of the 19th century, when people began to strongly impact nature by developing industry and burning large amounts of coal, oil and gas.

The report documented violent extreme weather conditions - especially heat - on every inhabited continent. Studies have shown that climate change has amplified or made some weather events more likely. The recent extreme temperatures recorded in Rio de Janeiro may confirm this rule.

On Sunday, March 17, "the gates of hell opened," Brazilian media reported. Then the record for perceived temperature from November 2023 was broken. Beaches in Rio de Janeiro were packed with people trying to cool off in the water, and authorities published a series of recommendations on how to deal with such extreme heat.

However, residents fear that surviving the heat, which is already difficult, will become increasingly difficult.

"I am very afraid that the situation will get worse because the population is growing significantly and deforestation is very high due to the increase in housing," said one of the residents, quoted by Al Jazeera.

Extreme heat will continue in Rio de Janeiro until Thursday. The temperature in the afternoons will invariably exceed 35 degrees Celsius, all under the scorching sun and very high air humidity, which will increase the perceived temperature. Only from Friday onwards, it is forecast to cool down and at the same time very intense rainfall will occur, contributing to flooding.

"The climate will warm, making life more dangerous."

According to The Guardian, Otto, the climate scientist from Imperial College in London, commented on the report's results.

"If we don't stop burning fossil fuels, the climate will continue to warm, making life more dangerous, unpredictable and more expensive for billions of people on Earth," she emphasised.

However, the climate science community is divided on whether the extreme temperatures recorded in early 2024 constitute an unexpected acceleration of the climate crisis. Some indicators, such as sea surface temperatures, were unexpectedly high - consistent with the return of the El Niño weather phenomenon causing ocean warming. What's more, other weather phenomena reached rare extremes earlier than previously thought.

Regarding temperatures, it can be said that a year like 2023, although extreme, is already possible in climate simulations. However, not all extreme weather events can be simulated by current climate models, said Andreas Fink, a meteorologist at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

*

This article was originally published on Onet Travel.