More than 1,000 people perished in the flash floods that tore through Afghanistan and Pakistan last spring. Wildfires consumed an astonishing 46 million hectares (113 million acres) in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, Pantanal wetlands and Cerrado biomes. Extreme heat killed at least 125 people in Mexico and took a devastating toll on the 1.7 million displaced by Israel’s war in Gaza. Roughly a quarter of the global population grappled with at least 30 days of dangerous heat this year, while the planet hit its hottest day on record in July. In 2024, there were 24 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters from January to November 2024 – a total second only to the 28 annual disasters experienced in 2023. Among them, the US logged one of its deadliest hurricanes as the furious storm Helene roared across the south-east and swept through Appalachian mountain towns. “It’s much more common now to see these extreme events not just occurring one at a time but overlapping,” said Jonathan Sury, a senior staff associate at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University. Often, these events are triggered one after the other, creating compounding or cascading hazards. “It is extremely taxing on emergency management, it is extremely taxing on first responders, and it is also taxing on communities that are most directly affected,” he added. Conditions in the past year were fuelled by the climate crisis but also affected by a warmer shift in surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific, a pattern known as El Niño. This helped tip the scales, bringing the already climbing temperatures to a boil. That means there’s at least some hope that 2025 will be cooler, according to Prof Adam Scaife, who led the team of scientists that produced the Met Office’s global forecast for the year. It won’t be enough to slow the upward trajectory of heating, which is markedly exacerbated by the burning of fossil fuels. 2025 temperatures are expected to outpace those of El Niño years logged in the past decade; and, with a forecast between 1.29C and 1.53C, this year is likely to fall in line behind 2024 and 2023 as one of the hottest years recorded. With the election of Donald Trump, a climate denier and extraction-industry evangelist, to lead the US – already ranked as the world’s second-largest emitter – prospects for reining in consumption are bleak. We are kicking off 2025 with good odds for more crises as the impact of heating continues to unfold. But there’s also still time – and much that can be done to both prevent and prepare for what lies ahead. If you still have blank spaces on your New Year resolution list, look to your community to see where you can play a part. Resiliency starts at the local level. Reaching out to a neighbour in need now so you can act quickly during a crisis could be key. Packing a go-bag, studying the possible dangers that lurk nearby, and bolstering homes all go a long way to curb the hurt caused by weather catastrophes, according to disaster experts. “We know heat is coming and will get worse,” said Sury. “Some parts of that we can’t stop but there are ways we can adapt our communities and livelihoods better to manage ourselves and our resources during future disasters.” Courtesy: The Guardian Read more: |
| 2025 likely to be another year of high temperatures |
Last year broke heat records – will 2025 be more similar?
