Heatwave Havoc: Record breaking heatwaves cause 15,000 deaths in Europe

Record-breaking heatwaves over the last few years, affecting the Europen continent and parts of China during the summer, have caused nearly 15,700 deaths, an analysis published by the United Nations Agency for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology, and Geophysics, claimed. The extreme heat accompanied by the dry conditions caused fatalities that exceeded more than 15 000 in Spain, Germany, the UK, France, and Portugal, according to World Meteorological Organization [WMO] annual report. 

Credit: UN/World Meteorological Organization

Second warmest March on record

The world also witnessed the second warmest March on record, and Antarctic sea ice was the second lowest on record due to climate change, according to two internationally recognised datasets from the WMO’s State of the Global Climate reports. The Antarctic sea ice extent continued to hover near record low levels, as per the data projected by EU Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA). China in the past few years, witnessed the most extensive and long-lasting heat waves. The country broke national records beginning mid-June to the end of August in 2022, resulting in the hottest summer on record by a margin of more than 0.5 °C and witnessing the second-driest summer on record, as per the WMO report. 

In the pre-monsoon heatwaves in India and Pakistan, crop yields significantly declined. As availability was threatened, including due to the Ukraine conflict, global exports of rice and wheat were restricted. Ban on crop export threatened the "access, and stability of staple foods within international food markets and posed high risks to countries already affected by shortages of staple foods," according to WMO. 

The global mean temperature of the countries in 2022 was 1.15 [1.02 to 1.28] °C above the 1850-1900 average. The year 2015 to 2022 was the eighth warmest in the instrumental record back to 1850. Last year was noted to be the 5th or 6th warmest year. This was despite three consecutive years of a cooling La Niña – such a “triple-dip” La Niña that occurred at least three times in the past 50 years, GMO maintained. Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, the three main greenhouse gases were observed at record highs in 2021, and the annual rise in the level of the toxic methane concentration was the highest between 2020 to 2021. 

"European Alps smashed records for glacier melt due to a combination of little winter snow, an intrusion of Saharan dust in March 2022 and heatwaves between May and early September," according to GMO's report. 

Switzerland, meanwhile, lost an estimated 6% of the glacier ice volume between 2021 and 2022 – and one-third between 2001 and 2022 due to global warming. For the first time in history, the summer melting process of ice was at the highest measurement and there was no accumulation of fresh ice. Substantial glacier mass losses were recorded in High Mountain Asia, western North America, South America, and parts of the Arctic. Sea ice in Antarctica reduced to 1.92 million km square on February 25, 2022, the lowest level on record.