In Spain, a horse pulling tourists drops dead mid-tour, horrifying onlookers. In India, the second-largest wheat crop in the world begins to wither. In Thailand, thick bushfire smog fills the lungs of thousands of people. And in labs the world over, alarmed scientists think the record temperature of the world’s oceans must be wrong.
Several countries are sweltering through some of the hottest months on record at the moment, among them India, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, China and Spain, the latter of which recorded an unprecedented 39-degree April day yesterday — just four weeks since the official end of the nation’s winter on March 21.
Bureau of Meteorology senior climatologist Greg Browning says he’s reluctant to place all the blame on climate change during individual weather events — it’s hard to prove — but seeing country after country declaring new heat records is “sobering”.
“Whenever you see data that goes beyond what you even think is possible,” Browning told Crikey, “it’s very concerning for what you might see down the track, whether it’s further warming of the oceans, more intense bushfire seasons, and more dangerous heatwaves.”
Browning says there remains a 50-50 chance of El Niño — La Niña’s hotter, dryer brother — descending upon Australia after three consecutive cooler, wetter years. But either way, he warns, extreme heat records in other parts of the world point to one thing: Australia is “primed for heatwaves conditions” this year.
And not all parts of Australia experience the heat the same way, he says. Coastal areas get the benefit of oceanic winds, but Browning notes that Australia’s hottest temperature was recorded in the Pilbara a couple of years ago — a coastal location.
Interestingly, he says it’s Adelaide and Melbourne that are prone to heatwaves thanks to a phenomenon meteorologists call “the blocking high”. It’s a high-pressure system that sits in the Tasman Sea, often for days on end, and then develops into a northerly flow that can envelop Adelaide for “the longest and most intense period”.
“If El Niño does eventuate they’re often the prime places,” Browning says.
Today the Spanish government warned citizens to make regular checks on vulnerable people, like babies, children and the elderly, as temperatures 7-10 degrees hotter than the average descend upon the country, a spokesperson for Spain’s state meteorological agency AEMET said.
“Confirmation is still pending, but this high-temperature episode will probably be the hottest April in the Iberian Peninsula since records began — since at least 1950,” he said. “When it comes to the relationship between this kind of weather and climate change, we know that extremely high temperatures have become more frequent and more intense, and this intense and extreme heat is arriving earlier.”
The heat is the result of a mass of very hot air from North Africa travelling across the Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic islands, though several countries in Asia are experiencing similar heatwave conditions to Spain.
The weather office in India warned citizens to expect intense heat waves between March and May after the country recorded its highest-ever maximum temperature in February (29.54 degrees). At least 13 people have died so far, and it’s posing a risk to the food supply: farmers in the key wheat-producing central and northern states grow just one wheat crop a year.
In Thailand two weeks ago, the mercury topped 45 degrees for the first time in the country’s history according to data from the Thai Meteorological Department, though Thai authorities issued a health alert for several provinces when the heat index (what the temperature “feels like”) was forecast to reach 50.2 degrees in the capital Bangkok.
April has also seen the global sea surface reach a record-high temperature of 21.1 degrees, and scientists say it is not clear why. The answer may be in a study released last week that found the Earth has accumulated nearly as much heat in 15 years as it did in the 45 years prior. Most of that heat has gone into the ocean.
To think like a scientist, Browning says, is to think about climate change “having its fingerprints” all over extreme weather conditions. Oftentimes it can be a “confluence of local conditions,” he says, but experts agree: they’re being turbo-charged by our rapidly changing climate.
