Europe’s climate monitor said that August was the hottest month ever recorded around the world and warned of worse to come, as an unprecedented El Niño pattern grows stronger. Global temperatures over land and sea soared to all-time highs in August and capped an extreme summer of heatwaves and wildfires that ranked the hottest on record for western Europe and the contiguous United States. The Copernicus Climate Change Service said global average air temperatures in August were 16.96C (62.52F) — surpassing the previous record for a single month set in July 2023.

Copernicus observations go back to 1940, but evidence from ice cores, tree rings and coral skeletons puts today’s climate in a much starker historical context. “Humans haven’t seen temperatures as hot as today for, at least the last 100,000 years,” Samantha Burgess from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which oversees Copernicus.

Experts warn that the Arab region’s heavy reliance on food imports leaves it exposed to climate shocks and global price spikes: Across the Arab world, climate change is increasingly being felt through shrinking water supplies, damaged crops and rising food prices. Experts warn that a region already among the world’s most water-stressed is becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate-driven hunger and humanitarian crises. “The Arab world is the most water-scarce region in the world when it comes to per capita availability of freshwater,” said Ahmad Mukhtar, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization coordinator for GCC states.

Both Judaism and Islam teach their followers to take care of the earth. Muslims and Jews also believe that humans should act as guardians and trustees (stewardship and khalifah) off our planet, and that they will be held accountable by God for their actions. New research suggests that the number of people threatened by sea level rise has been underestimated by tens of millions due to poorly-interpreted satellite data and a lack of scientific resources in many developing countries.

Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica have shed more than half-a-trillion metric tons annually since 2000—six icy Olympic pools every second. These kilometers-thick ice cubes have replaced glacier melt as the single biggest source of sea level rise, which has accelerated three-fold over the last decades compared to most of the 20th century.

More than 90% of the world’s population is projected to face increased risks from the compound impacts of extreme heat and drought, potentially widening social inequalities as well as undermining the natural world’s ability to reduce CO2 emissions in the atmosphere—according to a study from Oxford’s School of Geography. And communities around the world emitted more carbon dioxide than in any other year on records dating to 1900, a result of air travel rebounding from the pandemic and more cities turning to coal as a low-cost source of power.

Warming is projected to intensify these hazards ten-fold........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)