The health of our waters is the principal measure of how we live on the land — Luna Leopold
Floods, flames and heat: Images of this year’s extreme weather offer a stark backdrop for #COP26 #climate summit: Scientists say the impact of #ClimateChange is no longer an abstraction — The Washington Post #ActOnClimate
The head gate to Grand Lake’s hydro power plant is blocked by trees washed up during July 2021’s flash flooding. You can see the head gate on the right side of the picture. Photo credit: Town of Grand Lake
Intense rainfall, raging wildfires and deadly heat waves. The effects of climate change are no longer an abstraction. They are happening now, and with greater frequency.
At least 85 percent of the world’s population has felt its effects, according to research published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The devastations from the past 10 months alone have stunned climate experts.
“This was a really extreme year,” said Radley Horton, a research professor focused on climate extremes at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “Right now we’re seeing the climate extremes changing so fast that that alone is demonstrating that going past 1.5 Celsius will be something we won’t adapt to.”
Despite the 2015 Paris climate conference promise to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, country commitments have not come close to that goal. The United Nations says the world is on pace to experience an average temperature rise of 2.7 Celsius by the end of the century.
As leaders descend on Glasgow, Scotland, for this year’s climate conference, most of the world is already feeling the repercussions of their inaction.
From China to Germany, California to Siberia, the extreme weather events of 2021 have broken records and destroyed lives.
Students in Sam Ng’s Field Observation of Severe Weather class hit the road every spring to observe storm structures, like this mesocyclone in Imperial, Nebraska. Photo by Sam Ng via Metropolitan State University of Denver
Precipitation
“It’s way beyond what our aging infrastructure was designed for.” — Radley Horton, research professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Parts of the world were inundated with deadly, record-breaking precipitation. Infrastructure buckled under torrential downpours. Hundreds of people died in the ensuing floods.
In July, Germany’s heaviest rainfall in a century left over 150 people dead.
“We have never experienced something like this,” said Franz-Josef Molé, head of the German Weather Service’s Forecast and Advisory Center. “It’s beyond comprehension.”
Scientists linked the heavy rainfall to climate change, since a warmer atmosphere retains more water…
In South Sudan, October flooding from torrential rain affected more than 700,000 people, according to the United Nations refugee agency. The organization described people “marooned on islands on islands surrounded by water, sheltering under trees and unable to cross to safety.” There were also fears that waterborne diseases would spread.
UNHCR stressed that the impacts of climate change are “profoundly felt in East Africa,” where communities “are facing unprecedented floods and storms, unreliable rainfall, and distress under hotter and drier conditions as their basic needs and rights to water, food, livelihoods, land, and a healthy environment are hit hard.”
China and New York City also saw extreme rainfall this year. In July, a deadly downpour fell on the city of Zhengzhou, the heaviest rains ever recorded in the country with nearly 8 inches of rain falling in one hour. More than 300 people died in the floods and landslides. Rain cascaded down on the city, turning Metro stations into to swamps and highways into rivers.
In New York City, Central Park experienced record rainfall on Sept. 1, with 3.15 inches coming down in just one hour. The deluge filled up basements and tunnels within minutes. More than 40 people were killed.
In October, more than 29 inches of rain fell in northwestern Italy in just 12 hours setting a record for all of Europe.
The extreme flooding proved the effects of climate change were taking hold “faster than our climate models predicted,” with effects “way beyond what any of our aging infrastructure was designed for,” Horton said.
Photo credit: Elisa Stone via the World Weather Attribution
Heat
“Human bodies are really resilient. But there are thresholds for what we can withstand.” — Kristie Ebi, epidemiologist at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the University of Washington
Other places saw unexpected heat waves that left many dead and showed that even regions accustomed to cooler weather are not immune from the effects of a warming world.
Brutal temperature spikes swept through the Pacific Northwest this summer, killing hundreds of people in the United States and Canada. Streetcar cables in Portland melted. Pavements in Washington cracked from the pressure…
The waves pushed many into cooling centers for shelter and emergency rooms for care. They also drew lines between the privileged and the vulnerable: Access to air conditioning and proper health care were, for some, the difference between life and death.
While heat is not officially deemed a disaster like fire or flooding, it can be even more deadly. Sixty-four percent of Americans lived in places that saw multiday heat waves this summer, according to a Post analysis.
July was the earth’s hottest month on record for the planet. The United States and Europe recorded their hottest summers ever in 2021.
The temperature swelled to nearly 120 degrees in Sicily which, if confirmed, would be the highest temperature ever recorded in Europe.
Wildland firefighters apply structure wrap to the base of a giant sequoia tree to protect it from the KNP Complex Wildfire, September 17, 2021. Photo credit: Inciweb.org
Fires
“It’s a global year of fire.” — Merritt Turetsky, professor of ecology at University of Colorado Boulder
Heat waves left landscapes dry and brittle, paving the way for an apocalyptic fire season in the northern hemisphere as well.
“We knew this was coming,” said Merritt Turetsky, professor of ecology at University of Colorado Boulder. “Fire was going to follow those heat waves.”
Wildfires in North America, Siberia and the Mediterranean contributed to record-high carbon emissions in the months of July and August, according to Copernicus, the European Union’s atmospheric monitoring service.
The Dixie Fire became the second-largest in California history, destroying almost 1 million acres of land. More than three months later that fire is still burning.
In September, evacuations were ordered in Old Station, as strong winds in the area created a “fire whirl,” a tornado-like phenomenon that can fling flaming embers miles ahead of its wake.
In northeast Siberia, blazes swelled to become larger than all of the world’s active fires combined in August. The cloud of smoke it created traveled over the north pole. It consumed more than 40 million acres of land, according to Greenpeace Russia, and resulted in the worst fire season ever recorded in the country.
Wildfires also broke out in densely populated tourist destinations along the Mediterranean Sea, prompting evacuations of thousands of people. Blazes raged in Greece, Italy and Turkey, after prolonged heat waves in southeast Europe.
The year of extreme weather presented a devastating new reality as leaders meet in Glasgow.
“The climate system is going to keep shocking us,” Turetsky said. It’s going to happen again.”
