Over the past 12 months, the world has seen an additional 26 days of extreme heat on average as a result of climate change, a new analysis finds.
“Year after year, human-induced climate change manifests itself through more intense and frequent extreme weather events, with heat waves being the most dramatically affected,” wrote researchers from Climate Central, World Weather Attribution and the United Nations Climate Center. Red Cross and Red Crescent.
O analysis defined “extreme” heat as hotter than 90 percent of the local climate since 1991. The researchers recorded days when climate change doubled the odds of such heat. Countries closest to the equator – Indonesia, Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo – have seen the biggest increase in extreme heat. In the most serious cases, Suriname and Ecuador had more than 150 extra days.
Other regions – southern Australia, northern India, Siberia – saw just a few more days of extreme heat. The global average was 26 extra days.
The analysis covered May 2023 to May 2024, a period of unprecedented weather conditions across the world. 2023 was the hottest year on record, July the hottest month and July 6th the hottest day. Each of the last 11 months broken a monthly heat record.
“This is not a surprise or an accident,” the authors wrote. “The causes are well known and the impacts are devastating.”
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