However, the temperature in China is still within the tolerable range, while in North America, the Middle East, Russia and other places, record-breaking extreme high temperature weather has frequently occurred. According to experts’ analysis, this is caused by the intensification of the "thermal dome" phenomenon caused by global warming.
Extreme weather poses a great threat to human life and health. A recent study published in the British magazine The Lancet Planet Health pointed out that more than 5 million deaths worldwide every year are related to unusually cold or hot weather caused by climate change.
Hawking, a famous theoretical physicist and cosmologist, once predicted that the polar ice sheets of the earth would melt in 2032 due to global warming. Man must leave the earth in 2060; When the momentum of global warming cannot be contained, the earth will eventually become a planet with a temperature as high as 460 degrees like Venus. At that time, human beings will not be able to survive on the earth. Now it seems that this prediction is definitely not alarmist.
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The high temperature heat wave continues.
Since June this year, North America, the Middle East, central Russia and other regions have been hit by high temperatures, and the temperature records have been constantly refreshed.
Litton, British Columbia, Canada, broke the country’s highest temperature record of 45℃ in 1937 with 46.6℃, 47.9℃ and 49.5℃ for three consecutive days at the end of June. Usually, Litton’s summer temperature is only 35℃, and occasionally 40℃. Anthony Farnell, chief meteorologist of Canadian Global News, bluntly said: "As a meteorologist, this is something I have never seen before."
In the United States, many western States suffered from heat waves, especially California and Oregon. The temperature in Las Vegas exceeded 47.2℃, setting a new high temperature record since 1942. On July 11th, Death Valley in California recorded an ultra-high surface temperature of about 81℃, and the outdoor temperature reached 56℃.
On July 11, local time, in Death Valley, California, USA, tourists took a group photo with the thermometer display board outside the Huoluxi Visitor Center.
Figure | Reuters
Kuwait City, the capital of Kuwait in the Middle East, has an outdoor cool area of 54℃ and a direct sunlight area of 73℃, which is the first extreme high temperature in the city in 70 years. There was no one on the street, and the car headlights in the sun were directly baked.
High temperature in Kuwait city on July 4
Figure | CCTV
Russia’s city of St. Petersburg, which is located in a high latitude area of 60°N, was not spared. At the end of June, there was a high temperature of 35 C. Moscow also recorded a high temperature of 34.8℃, setting a new record for the city for 120 years.
These extremely hot weather caused death, especially the residents in the originally cool areas were caught off guard. The high temperature in Canada has killed more than 700 people, and nearly 200 people in the United States have died of high temperature. High temperature will also melt cables, resulting in paralysis of the power grid, and hot cracking of the road surface will lead to impassability, which will seriously affect the infrastructure. Mountain fires caused by high temperature threaten people’s lives and property safety at the same time. On July 10th and 11th alone, 50 mountain fires broke out in western Canada. As of July 15th, there have been more than 60 mountain fires in the midwest of the United States, which have ravaged 10 states and regions with a total area of 4,000 square kilometers. Among them, the Bakersworth mountain fire has affected more than 250 square kilometers of land, and nearly 1,800 firefighters have participated in the fire fighting task.
At the end of June, the high temperature caused the pavement of Highway 544 in Washington, USA to crack and the road was closed.
Figure | Twitter
In addition, millions of mussels, clams and other marine life in Vancouver, Canada died in pieces due to the heat wave. Biologists worry that shellfish that die at such a high speed will have a great impact on marine and land animals.
In early July this year, a piece of cooked mussels was baked on Vancouver beach.
Figure | Marine ecologist Alisa Gaiman
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Where does the "pot cover" cover the earth come from?
Why is there such a continuous and rising high temperature? Experts believe that the "Heat Dome" effect is aggravated by climate warming.
"thermal dome" effect
Figure | barrons.com
The so-called "thermal dome" means that the heat generated by the high-pressure cycle in the atmosphere and the surrounding low pressure form a thermal dome, which is equivalent to a mass of hot gas trapped in a heat shield, just like a heated pressure cooker. And this huge "pot cover" will absorb more and more hot air and repel cold air, resulting in higher and higher temperatures in this area.
CBS mentioned in the report that any heat flow is caused by highly amplified airflow, and the disturbance of these extreme airflow is a part of the natural movement of the atmosphere. However, with the emergence of more volatile, more curved and slowly moving airflow, a phenomenon called "Blocking" will occur. At this time, the waves of the atmospheric airflow will be lengthened, so that they will break, stand still and rotate. In this case, an "Omega Block" shaped like the Greek letter Ω appeared in the Pacific Northwest, and its internal heat gathered and intensified, which led to long-term high temperature.
This "thermal dome" is essentially a natural weather phenomenon, which can hardly be alleviated by human intervention, and can only be allowed to disappear after a period of time. But Nick Bond, a climatologist in Washington State, said that such a "thermal dome" heat wave is not common in the Pacific Northwest, and he was very surprised that such a high temperature appeared in the present and lasted for such a long time.
Wei Ke, an associate researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, believes that global warming intensifies this effect, which not only increases the temperature rise of extreme high temperature, but also easily leads to more serious blocking high pressure, which together makes extreme high temperature appear more frequently and with greater intensity.
Figure | CBS report screenshot
At the same time, the latest scientific research also shows that soil moisture also has a certain effect on high-temperature heat waves, and has multi-scale effects such as seasons and years. When the soil humidity decreases, the specific heat capacity decreases, on the one hand, it will lead to a significant increase in ground temperature, which can directly increase the atmospheric boundary layer temperature; On the other hand, it will increase the sensible heat flux, which is conducive to the warming of the lower troposphere, and make the subtropical high at high altitude continue to strengthen, and under the control of high pressure, it will continue to produce high-temperature heat wave weather. For example, the reason why Kuwait mentioned above can have such high temperature is also related to the fact that 90% of its national territory is desert.
In addition, it is also the urban "heat island effect". That is to say, some buildings with fast heat absorption and slow heat dissipation in the city are highly dense, and there are just few surrounding green vegetation, so the temperature in this area will be several degrees higher than that in farmland or forest areas, forming a so-called heat island.
At present, the global average temperature is within 1.5℃ above the pre-industrial revolution level, which is the critical temperature stipulated in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, with a difference of only 0.48℃. Once this critical value is broken, the probability of extreme drought, super typhoon and torrential rain will greatly increase, posing a great threat to human life. Climate control is imminent. At present, countries are also participating in energy conservation and emission reduction, green transformation and other actions, but it still takes some time to achieve the cooling effect.
May Hawking’s prediction mentioned above not come true.
References:
1.https:/ /www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
2.https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/06/SR15_Full_Report_Low_Res.pdf.
3.Zeng, X.-M.*, B. Wang, Y. Zhang, S. Song, X. Huang, Y. Zheng, C. Chen, and G. Wang, 2014, Sensitivity of high-temperature weather to initial soil moisture: a case study using the WRF model, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 14, 9623-9639, doi:10.5194/acp-14-9623-2014, 2014.
4. Wang Liwei, Jason. Study on the relationship between high temperature heat wave and soil moisture in North China-East China. Meteorological Science, 2015.35(5):558-564.
5.http://www.xinhuanet.com/2021-07/11/c_1127643788.htm
6.https://www.sohu.com/a/464848116_120060342
7.https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-29/heatwave-pacific-north-west-canada-temperature-record-high/100251164
8.https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/07/12/heat-wave-kills-millions-mussels-clams-beach-canada/7930726002/
9.https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/2021-07-15/doc-ikqcfnca6950489.shtml
10.https://news.sina.com.cn/w/2021-07-12/doc-ikqciyzk4994301.shtml