😩 🔥 Hot Singles In Your Area! Click Now! 💋 😳 -- Let's Read: "Extreme heat in North America, Europe and China in July 2023 made much more likely by climate change" (July 2023)

Are the people just crying out for low-energy shitposts and pithy comments?

Wait, don’t answer that.

- /u/lastweekincollapse

😏

As July comes to a close, I'd like to discuss why there are so many hot singles in your area. In fact, I'd even like to explain why there have been so many around the world. This July has been absolutely remarkable for so many reasons; after all, it's very likely to be the hottest month that humanity has ever had on record.

So, let's verify that claim. Here's a quick data-oriented retrospective of the past 30 days from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) in their article titled: July 2023 sees multiple global temperature records broken. Before I share their three key charts, I'd like to note that C3S has also stated that "[...] the first three weeks of the month w[ere] the warmest three-week period on record. During the first and third weeks, temperatures also temporarily exceeded the 1.5°C threshold above pre-industrial level – a limit set in the Paris Agreement."

We already know what's causing this, and we're not going to debate this any longer - anthropocentric greenhouse gas emissions are the principal driver. What we all seem to forget in this conversation is our unique set of circumstances. Not only are we the primary culprit behind the current sixth mass extinction, but we're watching our actions put an end to the remarkably stable climatic conditions of the Holocene era - a period just a little over eleven millennia.

In truth, current global temperatures are likely hotter than what we've seen in the past 100,000 years. I understand that some people might be hesitant to want to explore the natural histories of Spaceship Earth and its relationship to today (what's the point?), but we should really consider how studying the past will help us to understand what the future might hold. As noted by BBC News, "[...] while scientists can't pinpoint specific months going that far back, they say the last time the world was similarly warm was about 120,000 years ago - when sea levels were around 8 metres higher than today, and hippos were present as far north as Britain."

Now, while there's merit further exploring geological epochs and eras past (such as the Pliocene and the Eocene), or how the volatility of the unstable Pleistocene climate (the epoch immediately preceding the Holocene) essentially made agricultural civilization impossible - conditions similar to those on the horizon ... sadly, that's another topic for another day.

Since I'm getting ahead of myself and onto an unrelated tangent, I'd like to talk a particular aspect of that volatility; namely, the ever-increasing presence of extreme weather events and other natural disasters. There are many to choose - from storms, to droughts, but I'd like to focus in on today's topic: July's heatwaves, as discussed by the World Weather Attribution ("WWA") initiative.

I first stumbled across WWA's recent article titled "Extreme heat in North America, Europe and China in July 2023 made much more likely by climate change" purely by happenstance thanks to Reuters. Little did I know that I was in for an absolutely wonderful treat, which is why I intend to share parts of it with everyone here today. We'll start with Section 1: Introduction (a great recap of this month's events), before backtracking to their summary abstract (Main Findings), and then moving ahead to Section 7: Vulnerability and Exposure.

Myth's Note: For the sake of easier reading, I've removed the in-text citations (please use footnotes, WWA!). For those seeking answers, the authors have hyperlinked all of their sources in their original article. You can skim and skip the introduction and go straight to the Main Findings section below.

Section 1: Introduction

Extreme heat in North America, Europe and China in July 2023 made much more likely by climate change, WWA

1 Introduction

Following a record hot June 2023, the beginning of July 2023 saw extreme heatwaves in several parts of the Northern Hemisphere, including the Southwest of the USA and Mexico, Southern Europe, and China. Temperatures exceeded 50°C on the 16th of July in Death Valley in the USA as well as in Northwest China. Records were also reached in many other weather stations in China and the all-China heat record was broken in Sanbao on the 16th of July. The hottest night was recorded for Toksun, China.

In Europe, the hottest ever day in Catalunya was recorded and highest ever records of daily minimum temperature were broken in other parts of Spain. On the southern side of the Mediterranean many all time records were broken in Algeria [and] Tunisia. In the USA parts of Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico tied their all time high, parts of Arizona, Cayman Islands, highest ever night time temperatures in Phoenix, Arizona which also set a record for the longest time (19 days) without falling below 0F/32.2°C.

The extreme heat affected over 100 million people across the USA alone, where dozens of people have suffered heat-related deaths along the USA-Mexico border and throughout Arizona. An additional 211 fatalities have been reported in Mexico, nearly half of whom in the state of Nuevo León, along with at least four people in Italy, all while undertaking construction work, three in China, and one in Spain, Cyprus, and Algeria, respectively. Several thousands of cases of heat-related illness have moreover been reported across North America, Europe, notably in Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, and North Macedonia, North Africa, notably in Algeria, and eastern China.

In northern Syria, the extreme heat is particularly hard-hitting to internally displaced persons residing in camps, as temperatures are significantly exacerbated in tents and energy poverty has left people without reliable access to active cooling such as fans. In line with robust scientific evidence on the differential vulnerability to extreme heat, the elderly, young children, outdoor workers, and people living in homelessness and displacement are disproportionately affected by the high temperatures currently scorching the Northern Hemisphere.

Beyond its effects on human health, the heatwave has also led to record-breaking power demand increases across China as well as power outages, mainly in the USA and Europe. Large-scale crop damage and livestock losses have been reported throughout all affected regions, including for corn and soybeans in the USA, coffee, maize, beans, oats, and sugarcane, and the death of at least 200 cattle in Mexico, projected drops in the olive harvest in Spain, Italy, and Portugal, productivity losses in milk production and tomato crop damage in Italy, and reductions in grain harvest and cotton production in China.

The heat is moreover aggravating pre-existing water stress in Morocco, the USA, Turkey, and Iran. Low water levels of European rivers, including the Rhine, are also limiting shipping as barges must carry less, and risks restricting power output of two nuclear power plants in France that use water to cool reactors (Myth's Note: I cover this in my thread here). Due to prolonged high emperatures and dry conditions, wildfires are raging cross western USA, Puerto Rico, Spain, notably the Canary Islands, Switzerland, Croatia, and Turkey, displacing thousands of people and causing hazardous spikes in air pollution. These impacts are threatening agriculture-dominant economies and food and water security, and increasing food prices, leading to further devastating knock-on effects on domestic and global scales.

In this study, we investigate the role of human-induced climate change in the likelihood and intensity of these extreme heatwaves in three distinct regions. To achieve this, we follow the established methods of multi-model multi-method approach of extreme event attribution. This approach has been used in many case studies on extreme heat events, including the Mediterranean, North America, Siberia, Western Europe, India and Pakistan, Argentina , and South Asia.

To capture the events leading to the impacts described above we focus on three regions: the Southwestern USA and Northern Mexico, Southern Europe, and the low-lands of China. Figure 1 shows the maximum temperatures over the hottest periods in July and the anomalies with respect to the 1950-2022 average of daily maximum temperatures in the peak summer months of July and August.

We focus the analysis on the maximum temperatures in the global regions where anomalously high temperatures have been reported during the on-going summer season, and many people have been affected by the heat: North America (Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada in the USA, Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, and Coahuila in Mexico); Southern Europe (Spain, Italy, Greece and the Balkan states neighbouring the Mediterranean); and China.

[...]

Due to the particularly short time frame in which it was produced, this document presents a more limited analysis than other World Weather Attribution studies. The analysis follows the peer-reviewed World Weather Attribution Protocol but unlike most studies, only one reanalysis dataset is used in the observational analysis, and one multi-model ensemble in the attribution. Furthermore, preliminary reanalysis data have been used in the observational analysis. This may have an influence on the estimated return period, although based on past experience in similar studies the effect on the overall result is likely to be small. For more details on differences in the methods, see Section 2.3.

The AR6 WGI report stresses that Mediterranean regions have in general already undergone increases in heat waves and agro-ecological droughts, attributable to climate change with respectively high and medium confidence. Warming of between 0.2°C and 0.3°C per decade has been observed in the Central America region, reaching 0.5°C per decade in Mexico and southern Baja California in the last 30 years. In the Asian continent, there has been a clear and substantial warming of temperatures over the past century.

Additionally, extreme heat episodes have noticeably increased in frequency across most regions of the continent. In a warming scenario, it is very likely that trends in hot extremes will continue to intensify. The current heatwaves are therefore among the many consequences expected from climate change, and this is reflected in the fact that none of the events assessed in this study have been found to be particularly rare in the current climate.

Now, what the WWA research team has put together is a prime example of what all authors should endeavour to produce: a descriptive and well-cited background, combined with an accessible description of their general methodology. Let's jump back to an earlier point in their article now, specifically regarding their key findings and results.

Main Findings

Extreme heat in North America, Europe and China in July 2023 made much more likely by climate change, WWA

Main Findings

● Heatwaves are amongst the deadliest natural hazards with thousands of people dying from heat-related causes each year. However, the full impact of a heatwave is rarely known until weeks or months afterwards, once death certificates are collected, or scientists can analyse excess deaths. Many places lack good record-keeping of heat-related deaths, therefore currently available global mortality figures are likely an underestimate.

● In line with what has been expected from past climate projections and IPCC reports these events are not rare anymore today. North America, Europe and China have experienced heatwaves increasingly frequently over the last years as a result of warming caused by human activities, hence the current heat waves are not rare in today's climate with an event like the currently expected approximately once every 15 years in the US/Mexico region, once every 10 years in Southern Europe, and once in 5 years for China.

● Without human induced climate change these heat events would however have been extremely rare. In China it would have been about a 1 in 250 year event while maximum heat like in July 2023 would have been virtually impossible to occur in the US/Mexico region and Southern Europe if humans had not warmed the planet by burning fossil fuels.

● In all the regions a heatwave of the same likelihood as the one observed today would have been significantly cooler in a world without climate change. Similar to previous studies we found that the heatwaves defined above are 2.5°C warmer in Southern Europe, 2°C warmer in North America and about 1°C in China in today’s climate than they would have been if it was not for human-induced climate change.

● Unless the world rapidly stops burning fossil fuels, these events will become even more common and the world will experience heatwaves that are even hotter and longer-lasting. A heatwave like the recent ones would occur every 2-5 years in a world that is 2°C warmer than the pre industrial climate.

● Heat action plans are increasingly being implemented across all three regions and there is evidence that they lead to reduced heat-related mortality. Furthermore, cities that have urban planning for extreme heat tend to be cooler and reduce the urban heat island effect. There is an urgent need for an accelerated roll-out of heat action plans in light of increasing vulnerability driven by the intersecting trends of climate change, population ageing, and urbanisation.

Now, while you're all welcome to delve into this document at your leisure, the last paragraph is what truly piqued my interest. From the perspective of geological time, the full span of human civilization in the Holocene is less than a blink of an eye - and yet, when it comes to climate change, we are now looking at the climate conditions that will define industrial (and post-industrial) civilization from here on out. Forever, to the point where ecological overshoot could even be considered to be a defining historical teleology for industrial civilization. To quote, albeit from the narrow lens of anthropogenic CO2 emissions:

Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming, Andreas Malm

For every year global warming continues and temperatures soar higher, living conditions on earth will be determined more intensely by the emissions of yore, so that the grip of yesteryear on today intensifies – or, put differently, the causal power of the past inexorably rises, all the way up to the point when it is indeed ‘too late’. The significance of that terrible destiny, so often warned of in climate change discourse, is the final falling in of history on the present.

History does not usually work in this way.

Again, I digress.

Finally, let's dig into the meat of today's subject. The final section of the article is what I wanted to share today - Section 7: Vulnerability and Exposure - and it is a matter of personal and professional importance to me.

It isn't very often that you see discussions on long-term urban planning and heat adaptation strategies discussed in detail in publicly-available academic articles, so I've shared it in full below. These measures include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Preparation of Heat Health Action Plans (HHAPS) and subsequent implementation strategies;

• Increasing availability of active cooling devices such as air conditioners and fans, specifically for emergency situations (note: air conditioning will not save us);

• The mainstreaming of passive cooling design (such as emphasizing high reflectivity in urban environments - I explore Tel Aviv Bauhaus architecture here); and

• Increasing green space and tree canopy coverage (note evapotranspiration only works up to a certain point, and climate change may occur faster than species can adapt)

Now, to wrap things up - this isn't the hopeful "feel-good" ending to the story. It also isn't an appeal for net-zero buildings or for other tepid sustainability measures. It's a reminder that reducing potential heatwave-induced mortality and morbidity (among an endless number of other priorities) for our perilous future requires education, planning, and immediate action yesterday. This threat must remain a long-term priority over the next few years, decades and centuries, especially if we want to minimize casualty rates and urban disasters - until the End of History.

These recommendations were not meant to be hidden away in texts and tomes, such as a lazy Sunday read that's gone on for far too long. It is my sincere hope that you will take note of what will be discussed below, and that the onus falls on -all of us- to ensure that our elected officials, governments, and other community institutions can do their part to help our towns, cities, and communities to survive the hotter world to come. As I've said before, this is a matter of personal and professional practice, and I will fully support what the WWA has put together here today for your learning, awareness, and future advocacy.

Finally, and quite frankly to be a little selfish, this is more than just education; I have a vested interest in ensuring that global industrial civilization continues - I enjoy being alive after all - and that requires us to build the resilient communities of tomorrow.

We still have time to prepare; it just requires us to act now.

Section 7: Vulnerability and Exposure

Extreme heat in North America, Europe and China in July 2023 made much more likely by climate change, WWA

7 Vulnerability and Exposure

Heatwaves are amongst the deadliest natural hazards with thousands of people dying from heat-related causes each year. However, the full impact of a heatwave is often not known until weeks or months afterwards, once death certificates are collected, or scientists can analyse excess deaths. In many cases, we never know the full extent of the impact to human health because heat-related deaths are often attributed to other causes like kidney failure or cardiac arrest, when they would not have occurred had the high temperatures not exacerbated someone’s pre-existing condition, or they are not counted at all.

Despite this, we have observed instances such as the 2022 Europe heat season with at least 61,000 deaths, in addition to the 2010 Russian and 2021 North American heatwaves with over 55,000 and 1,000 deaths, respectively. The correlation between extreme heat and increases in mortality has been well established by research, in Europe and North Africa, North America, and globally.

[...] heatwaves do not need to result in excess deaths. Simple actions like checking in on your neighbours, drinking enough water, and finding a cool place to go during the hottest part of the day can save lives if instituted systematically by governments through heat action plans. As of 2022, 17 out of the European Union’s 53 member states had developed national heat health action plans (HHAPs) since the deadly 2003 heatwave that took over 70,000 lives.

Among the 17 HHAPs, several core elements (as outlined by the WHO guidelines) remain gaps, notably reduction in indoorheat exposure, long-term urban planning, and real-time surveillance and evaluation. While trends of climate change, population ageing, and urbanisation are exacerbating vulnerability, many parts of Europe and North America are experiencing decreases in heat-related health impacts. This suggests that heat action implemented to date is indeed helping strengthen resilience.

Further measures that can help save lives include ensuring the availability of active cooling devices such as air conditioners and fans, and the ability of electrical grids to cope with an increase in demand. Across several urban centres in eastern China, the power consumption has surged and broken records. Despite this, power outages remain limited.

The long list of measures implemented by the State Grid Corporation of China to ensure reliable access to energy in Beijing include having increased staffing by 9,300 people, deployed 165 emergency power generation vehicles on standby, and opened a 24-hour emergency power transmission service to ensure availability for people to purchase energy. Research on heat mortality in Beijing confirms the positive role of active cooling as a coping mechanism when faced with extreme heat. While this was likely life-saving, it should be mentioned that significant upscaling to coal production and burning was key to meeting this demand. Shanghai was, for instance, reported to be burning 800 tons of coal per hour to help its 26 million inhabitants withstand the heat.

Similarly, it is crucial that health services are prepared to deal with an influx of heat patients. In Italy, hospitals report an up to 25% heat-related increase in admissions, urging regional governments to activate a “heat code” to establish fast-track access to emergency rooms for patients suffering from heat strokes. Similar protocols have been activated in Greece.

Due to urban heat island (UHI) effects, cities experience notably higher temperatures compared to their rural surroundings. In Athens (Greece), and Miami-Dade, Phoenix, and Los Angeles (US), four of the world’s currently eight Chief Heat Officers (CHOs) are mandated by their respective cities to coordinate heat action for increased resilience among vulnerable inhabitants.

This includes updating the Climate Action Plan and supporting the development of a green and blue infrastructure city project across Athens (Atlantic Council, n.d.), creating a multi-stakeholder Climate and Heat Health Task Force in Miami-Dade (Miami-Dade County, n.d.), developing an action plan to reduce heat-related mortality and hospitalizations in Los Angeles, and establishing an heat action plan to address the increasing urban heat risks in Phoenix.

To prevent impacts during this period of relentless heat, all four cities, and many more, opened cooling centres to provide relief for vulnerable city dwellers. In Athens, the Acropolis was closed for tourists work during afternoons was suspended in high risk areas and workers with health issues within the private sector requested to work remotely, and public and private sector services underwent changes to their operating hours to limit unnecessary travel during the hottest hours of the day.

In Nuevo León in northern Mexico, one of the worst-affected states in terms of heat mortality to date, over 96% of the population resides in urban centres. The state capital, Monterrey, had a CHO between April 2022 and April 2023; the Officer was an architect specialised in urban planning, making her well-placed to advance the mainstreaming of passive cooling design, which has shown promising results to reduce indoor heat in pilot programs throughout low-income neighbourhoods.

In Europe, much of the existing building stock was built before modern-day thermal standards and results in an increased demand for active cooling during heatwaves. Retrofitting and designing new infrastructure with passive cooling strategies (e.g. passive solar shade, insulation, natural ventilation, building orientation and shape) can help to reduce energy demand and costs.

Cities that have urban planning for extreme heat tend to be cooler and reduce the urban heat island effect. Research by Marando et al. (2022) on the ecosystem services of green areas in over 600 European cities shows that vegetation-based spaces cool urban centres by up to 2.9°C and 1.07°C on average. On average across the studied cities, to reduce urban temperatures by 1, 2 or 3°C, a city needs a 16%, 32%, or 48% tree cover, respectively. Similarly, Colunga et al. (2015) suggest that the UHI effect in the central Mexican city of Querétaro could drop by 2.05°C if the urban zone canopy cover would increase by 50%.

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If you enjoyed today’s piece, and if you also share my insatiable curiosity for the interdisciplinary aspects of “collapse”, please consider taking a look at some of my other written and graphic works at my Substack Page – Myth of Progress. That said, as a proud member of this community, I will always endeavour to publish my work to r/collapse first.

My work is free, and will always be free; when it comes to educating others on the challenges of the human predicament, no amount of compensation will suffice.... and if you've made it this far, then you have my sincere thanks. Here's one last reward for your troubles!