Swathes of China, Japan log record summer temperatures

BEIJING: Swathes of China logged the hottest August on record last month, the weather service said, as Japanese authorities announced that 2024 had been its warmest summer since records began.
China is the leading emitter of the greenhouse gas emissions scientists say are driving global climate change.
Beijing has pledged to bring planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions to a peak by 2030 and to net zero by 2060.
Its weather service said in an article published on Sunday (Sep 1) that average air temperatures last month in eight provinces, regions and cities “ranked the hottest for the same period” since records began.
They included the megacity of Shanghai, the provinces of Jiangsu, Hebei, Hainan, Jilin, Liaoning and Shandong, as well as the northwest region of Xinjiang, the weather service said.
A further five provinces chalked up their second-hottest August, while seven more endured their third-hottest.
“Looking back at the past month, most parts of China have experienced a hotter summer than in previous years,” the weather service said.
The major population centres of Shanghai, Hangzhou and Chongqing also saw more “high temperature days” – typically declared when the mercury breaches 35 degrees Celsius – than in any August since records began.
Although the heat is expected to recede across much of the north as autumn begins, “it is still too early to end completely”, the weather service said.
Climate scientists have already predicted that 2024 will be the hottest year on record for Earth because of a warming planet.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said July was the second-warmest on record books going back to 1940, only slightly cooler than July 2023.
Extreme heat has seared much of East Asia this summer, with Asian neighbour Japan saying on Monday that its long-term average temperature between June and August was 1.76 degrees Celsius above the standard value, the joint highest since statistics started being kept in 1898.
Rising global temperatures also make extreme weather more frequent and intense, and China has seen a summer of extreme weather, from heatwaves across much of the north and west to devastating floods in central and southern regions.
Chinese weather authorities said July was the country’s hottest month since records began, state media reported, as extreme temperatures persist across large parts of the globe.
Last month was “the hottest July since complete observations began in 1961, and the hottest single month in the history of observation”, state broadcaster CCTV said, citing weather authorities.
The average air temperature in China last month was 23.21 degrees Celsius, exceeding the previous record of 23.17 degrees Celsius in 2017, CCTV reported the weather authorities as saying.
Japan suffered its joint warmest summer this year since records began, equalling the level seen in 2023, data from the weather office showed on Monday.
Japan’s long-term average temperature between June and August was 1.76 degrees Celsius above the standard value, the joint highest since statistics started being kept in 1898, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
This July was already the hottest in Japan since records began, with the variation across the archipelago 2.16 degrees Celsius higher than average.
In central Tokyo alone, 123 people died of heatstroke in July, when extreme heatwaves saw a record number of ambulances mobilised in the capital, according to local authorities.
Southern Japan was also hit by a major typhoon last week, one of the strongest to hit the archipelago of 125 million people in decades.
Typhoon Shanshan killed at least six people, including three family members in a landslide, and dumped record rain across many areas.
Typhoons in the region have been forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change, according to a study released in July.
A rapid attribution analysis by the Imperial College London using peer-reviewed methodology calculated that Typhoon Shanshan’s winds were made 26 per cent more likely by a warming planet.
A Japanese weather agency official cited the peculiar movement of westerly winds above Japan this year that “made it easier for the archipelago to be shrouded in warm air from the south”.
“Also at play is the long-term effect of global warming, which is pushing up average temperature,” weather agency official Kaoru Takahashi told AFP.
Scientists say that fossil fuel emissions are worsening the length, frequency and intensity of heatwaves across the world.
From January to July, global temperatures were 0.7 degree Celsius above the 1991-2020 average, according to the European Union’s C3S.
Record temperatures have been observed in the Mediterranean Sea, Norway’s Arctic Svalbard archipelago and the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in the last few weeks alone.
Australia registered a record-high winter temperature last month, with the mercury hitting 41.6 degrees Celsius in part of its rugged and remote northwest coast.
In Europe, Greece has seen 50 per cent more summer wildfires this year than in 2023 as well as its earliest heatwave and warmest winter on record.
The rising temperatures are leading to longer wildfire seasons and increasing the area burnt in the flames, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.