The hottest place on Earth in the future

The Mediterranean has just experienced a record-breaking hot spring. During the April heatwave, the region recorded temperatures up to 20 degrees Celsius above normal in Algeria, Morocco, Portugal and Spain.

Scientists don’t usually say climate change is the sole cause of a particular weather event, but this one is different. World Weather Attribution, a group of climate modelers, says greenhouse gases made the Mediterranean heat wave 100 times more likely.

Extreme temperatures during heat waves can be dangerous for people who have to work outdoors. (Photo: Reuters)

In an article in Climate and Atmospheric Science, Nikolaos Christidis, a climatologist at the UK Meteorological Office, analyses future climate scenarios for the Mediterranean and the Middle East as the world continues to warm.

Researchers wanted to determine the frequency of days when temperatures reached 50 degrees Celsius.

Christidis’s team used data from dozens of monitoring sites, from Turkey and Spain to Egypt and Qatar. First, they created a computer simulation of a pre-industrial world in which humans had not yet altered the atmosphere.

In this scenario, 50C days are virtually impossible. Without greenhouse gases, these extreme temperatures would only occur in Saudi Arabia and on the coast of Tunisia, less than once a century.

Next, they simulated a world with emissions at roughly today’s levels, with countries reducing but not stopping emissions altogether. The level of carbon dioxide in the air would be around 600 parts per million by 2100, up from around 400 parts per million today.

In this scenario, every year the Mediterranean would see heat waves exceeding 45 degrees Celsius, and about once every 10 years there would be heat waves of up to 50 degrees Celsius across the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

At these temperatures, droughts and fires will become even more frequent, while 2022 is already the second most severe wildfire season on record in Europe and the Mediterranean.

Extreme temperatures can melt asphalt, warp railroad tracks and make outdoor work dangerous.

Heat waves have caused 8% of all weather-related deaths. The combination of high temperatures and humidity prevents people from losing heat through sweating, causing death.

Countries in the Mediterranean and the Middle East are used to heat, but future scenarios are much more severe than today.

(Source: Zing News)

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