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DUBAI: From heatwaves to white-outs, from fires to floods … the weather appears to be throwing everything it has at our planet.
Across the world, the climate and the conditions are going to vastly different extremes. For some, it means delight. For others, it spells danger. And for those living in the Arabian Gulf, it has just brought dust.
Riyadh, the Saudi capital, was blasted by a sandstorm last week, and on Sunday it was the turn of the UAE. High winds and sandstorms swept across the emirates, cutting visibility to virtually zero at times, and giving the nation its own weather talking-point as countries around the world coped with both heat and horror.
In Myanmar, at least 10 people were killed and tens of thousands more driven from their homes as the region was drenched by monsoon rain that, in some places, left only the rooftops of houses visible above the rising waters.
Tragedy has also struck 12,500km away in northern California, where wildfire has claimed five lives and entire neighborhoods have been devastated by a blaze that has now destroyed more than 500 buildings and has already continued into its seventh day. The US state has seen temperatures rise to a record 48.9C in the city of Chino.
In Japan, western areas which have already had to withstand floods and landslides earlier this month were hit by a fresh weather crisis, as Typhoon Jongdari struck. Winds of up to 180km an hour were accompanied by torrential rain and travel chaos.
But across the northern hemisphere, the vagaries of the weather have brought something that sounds like a dream but which carries its own threat — record high temperatures.
The perils of extreme heat have been illustrated in Greece, where the worst forest fires in the country’s history have killed 82 people. But they have also been felt in Sweden, hardly a nation used to sweltering temperatures, but now suffering an unprecedented drought and devastating wildfires amid its hottest spell in 250 years.
Meanwhile, in less-than-tropical Germany, farmlands in northern areas have been stripped bare by unrelenting sun, leaving combine harvesters to kick up dust rather than gather up crops. Farmers have voiced concerns that their livelihood is in danger, with talk now turning to whether a natural disaster — which is declared in Germany when 30 percent of the average annual harvest is destroyed — will be called.
There is no respite in immediate sight, either: The World Meteorological Organization has predicted temperatures from Ireland to Scandinavia and the Baltic countries will remain at record levels until early August. Its deputy secretary-general, Elena Manaenkova, has said the heatwave is “consistent with what we expect as a result of climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions.
It perhaps should not come as a surprise, as the past three years have been the hottest ever recorded on Earth. But as Anders Levermann, a professor at the Postdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said: “The most important question is ‘Will we see this more often if we don’t reduce carbon emissions?’
“And this question is the one we can say ‘yes’ to.”