With temperatures above freezing at the North Pole, deadly tornadoes in Texas, extreme heat in Australia, and floods in Britain and Missouri, the world is beset by extreme weather events as it welcomes in the New Year.
A powerful and destructive low-pressure system in the North Atlantic has pushed the mercury up to 2?C at the North pole, 20?C above the seasonal norm.
The Arctic has borne the brunt of global warming, with temperatures 3?C higher than the pre-industrial era, but linking the current mild conditions to climate change is premature, warned Natalie Hasell, meteorologist at the Canadian Department of the Environment, saying that scientists do not base their conclusions “on one anomaly.”
Photo: AFP
The North Atlantic depression also brought eastern Canada an unusually warm holiday period, with temperatures hitting 15.9?C in Montreal on Christmas Eve, about 20?C above the seasonal average.
That was followed by heavy snowfall.
In the US, tornadoes and floods left at least 49 dead.
The waters of the mighty Mississippi River have already exceeded overflow levels by 4m in some areas, claiming 13 lives. In the south, spectacular tornadoes devastated parts of Texas.
The common cause of the unusual events is a particularly strong El Nino system, amplified by global warming, scientists said.
El Ninos, which emerge every four to seven years on average and run from October through this month, are triggered by a shift in trade winds across the Pacific around the Equator.
However, last year’s episode is “probably the strongest in the last 100 years,” said Jerome Lecou, forecaster at Meteo-France.
“There is no simple answer” to explain the exceptional conditions, he added.
Although centered on the Pacific Ocean, El Nino “has an impact on a global scale,” said Jean Jouzel, former vice president of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Generally, El Nino years are warmer than average.”
In Australia, scorching heat has led to large forest fires and temperatures are forecast to soon hit 38?C in the south.
In France, the unseasonably warm weather has baffled Mother Nature with Perigord strawberries, Alsatian asparagus and mimosas all flourishing on the French Riviera.
In Spain, higher temperatures and low rainfall have led to an unusual outbreak of wildfires in the north.
Several Italian cities have introduced traffic restrictions to combat fine-particle pollution, which has been worsened by the dry and calm conditions.
Record rainfall has brought unprecedented flooding to the north of England, leaving the historic city of York under water and thousands evacuated over the last month.
Stormy weather buffeting the North Sea brought havoc to oilfields on New Year’s Eve, with one man reported killed by a giant wave hitting a rig, and hundreds of workers evacuated after a huge barge broke its moorings and began drifting.
“There is no doubt in my mind that climate change is partly responsible for the flooding across the north of England,” said Piers Forster, professor of climate science at Leeds University.
Britain’s mean temperature last month was a record-breaking 8?C, smashing the previous high of 6.9?C set in 1934, according to the Met Office.
It was also the wettest December on record for Scotland and Wales, and one of the top 10 wettest in Britain as a whole.
Worldwide, temperatures between January and November last year have already broken records, suggesting that last year will be the hottest in modern history, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“On a global level, we really are in an exceptional year as it is just over a 10th of a degree warmer than 2014, which itself was a record year,” Jouzel said. “This is a real leap, one 10th of a degree from one year to another.”
With El Nino showing little sign of running out of steam, he forecast that this year could be warmer still, but that following years would be less extreme.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS