One thing that I noticed is that this summer has been quite hot. Ironically, it is not as hot here, where I am, at least in comparison to some other places. Much of the rest of the United States has been dealing with very hot – even dangerously hot – temperatures and conditions. Here, it just is regularly hot and sticky, and despite repeatedly hearing forecasts of forthcoming rain, it almost never seems to actually rain.
Still, I feel a little strange about complaining about it at the moment. After all, much of the rest of the country has had to endure incredibly hot weather conditions. Like, ridiculously hot. The forecast for many cities in Texas are supposed to be over 100 degrees Fahrenheit every single day for the week as highs. Those are sweltering, possibly even dangerous, conditions. It also happens, as I understand it, as Texas is experiencing some serious issues with their power grid, which I believe is the only power grid completely isolated from the rest of the country.
Yet, this is perhaps not as bad in some other regions of the world, or at least in the northern hemisphere in particular. Here is a snippet of news (please click the link below for more details from the article that I obtained this particular quote from):
In June and July 2022, heatwaves struck Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, as temperatures climbed above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in places and broke many long-standing records.
This is nothing new. In fact, this is a topic that I have covered before numerous times. Why? Because bizarre weather patterns have become the norm, just as scientists predicted decades ago. It was encompassed in what some people call the "global warming theory," and which far too many people still believe to be a mere hoax. To me, the existence of very strange and extreme weather patterns all around the world, with record hot temperatures at numerous different regions of the world throughout recent years, and record floods in some places and record droughts in others places, begs the question as to whether we can really afford to still be debating the merits of what clearly seems to be confirmation of what scientists were warning us about climate change/global warming.
Just in case you think that this is isolated, or that I am perhaps being disingenuous with claims that these stories have become so numerous that they have been covered here on this blog numerous times over the span of the years, here are links to previous blog entries regarding similar strange weather phenomenon (with a particular focus on record hot temperatures consistently being broken in some places within a couple of years after the previous record. In other words, record hot temperatures in such faraway places as the western United States (particularly the southwestern desert region), Europe, the Arabian peninsula, and Australia keep seeing record hot temperatures set just a couple of years earlier broken again within two or so years. In fact, these new records for heat seem to last, at most, a couple of years, before another wave of record hot temperatures come around to eclipse those not so old records. It has happened repeatedly in a number of different regions in the world, but especially in Australia, the Middle East (especially the Arabian peninsula), the American southwestern desert, Europe, and even in Alaska and the Arctic regions. It happened in 2015, in 2017, again in 2019, again in 2021, and now sure seems to be happening again this year, as well. I finally got around to collecting my own blog entries recording this pretty clear trend, and here are the blog entries, if you would like to take a look for yourself:
Just a Reminder That the "Global" Part of Global Warming Means Something, March 12, 2014:
https://charbor74.blogspot.com/2014/03/just-reminder-that-global-part-of.html
Record Hot Temperatures Experienced in Alaska in May, June 15, 2015:
https://charbor74.blogspot.com/2015/06/record-hot-temperatures-experienced-in.html
A Short, Personal History of Episodes With Climate Change Denial in the United States, February 4, 2017:
https://charbor74.blogspot.com/2017/02/a-short-personal-history-of-climate.html
Record Heat Wave Out West Seems Part of a Growing Worldwide Trend, June 22, 2017:
https://charbor74.blogspot.com/2017/06/record-heat-wave-out-west-seems-part-of.html
No Excuses Anymore - Climate Change is Real, and We Need to Take This Seriously, September 6, 2017:
https://charbor74.blogspot.com/2017/09/no-excuses-anymore-climate-change-is.html
Strange Weather Lately! July 31, 2019:
https://charbor74.blogspot.com/2019/01/strange-weather-lately.html
Despite Official Climate Change Denial in Trump's America, Record Heat Waves Around the World Just Part of a Growing Worldwide Trend, July 26, 2019:
https://charbor74.blogspot.com/2019/07/despite-official-climate-change-denial.html
Australian Government Climate Crisis Denial is Exacerbating Current Response to Record Heat & Wildfire, January 4, 2020:
https://charbor74.blogspot.com/2020/01/australian-government-climate-crisis.html
New Records of Never Before Experienced Heat Around the World Confirm Reality of Climate Change, But Skeptics Simply Keep Ignoring Facts, May 20, 2021:
https://charbor74.blogspot.com/2019/12/new-records-of-never-before-experienced.html
That's nine entries - count 'em, nine - where I covered very extreme weather conditions, particularly record heat somewhere in the world. That stretches from 2014 until this month, July of 2022. And yes, if you notice, some of these regions seem to be featured in these stories of record heat repeatedly. Right now, it is Europe and the Arabian peninsula, although much of the western and interior parts of the United States have been experiencing unusually intense hot temperatures and sweltering conditions this summer, as well. We have grown used to some of the tragedies of these stories, including very threatening wildfires raging out of control in Australia and the western United States. One such wildfire in Oregon was so big that it actually altered the weather (I will try to post an article about this particular story shortly), and I can attest that when my son and I visited Yellowstone and Colorado back in the summer of 2018, the views were not as clear as they should have been because of the huge wildfires that were then raging in California, and the smoke had traveled westward to kind of overcast the skies over the Rockies. Right now, wildfires are occurring in places where they are not quite as usual to see: Europe. This includes France, Portugal, and Spain I do not remember these places traditionally being hotbeds of wildfires due to excessive heat until recent years. In fact, much of Europe normally had relatively mild summers, comparatively speaking. Now, they appear to regularly experience record hot temperatures and dangerous, swelteringly hot conditions. I remember seeing a wildfire from record heat in France just two years ago, when old heat records established in 2019 were eclipsed. Once again, records appear to be there again in much of Europe.
But don't take my word for it. Do your own research, if you feel so inclined. Almost all of these links to my own blog entries should have links to articles covering these stories about very unusual weather events, which seem to be less and less unusual as the years pass now. See if I am being alarmist, or if maybe, indeed, there really is a trend that we should not only take notice of, but finally take action for, while there still might be time to do something about it.
Here is the link to the original article which got me on this topic to begin with, and which specifically addresses the massive, uncharacteristic heat waves and record hot temperatures being experienced in some regions of the world this year (2022):
Heatwaves and Fires Scorch Europe, Africa, and Asia July 13, 2022
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150083/heatwaves-and-fires-scorch-europe-africa-and-asia?utm_source=FBPAGE&utm_medium=NASA+Earth&utm_campaign=NASASocial&linkId=173252999&fbclid=IwAR3XL1wR9IO4HE4Jl_82DrV2sRXe-iFfbnNoDGEE68d_CJPufb4uXntF_LU
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