The heat wave in China entered its 63rd day on Monday, making it the longest heat wave since records began in 1961. In addition, this heat wave is hotter and affects large areas of the country than the one in 2013, which previously held the record. Sun Shao of the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences confirmed this Global Times.
The heat wave started in June, and then led to the warmest June on record in China. Since then, heat records have been broken several times across the country.
Last Saturday, Zhushan, in the central province of Hubei, topped the list with 44 degrees. According to local media, more than 10 provinces faced temperatures above 40 degrees. The mercury rose above 42 degrees in the ten warmest cities.
According to the Chinese calendar, this year autumn started on August 7, but the Chinese will not notice that from the weather. Meteorologists expect the warm weather to continue for at least another two weeks.
Climate change
Chinese meteorologists suspect that the heat wave is partly the result of a La Niña weather system, which is bringing warm and dry air to China. But climate change also plays a role, as is often the case with extreme weather. In 2018 concluded scientists that the Chinese heat wave of a year earlier would have been virtually impossible without climate change.
Data from the IPCC also shows that the number of days with temperatures above 35 degrees in East Asia with a global warming of 1.5 degrees will increase by 2.4. With a warming of 3 degrees, that increase is no less than 7.5 days.
“Against the backdrop of climate change, heatwaves are becoming the ‘new normal,'” Chen Lijuan of the National Climate Center told the Global Times. ‘The high temperatures start early, go away late and last for a long time, that will become increasingly clear in the future.’
Besides hot, it is also exceptionally dry in China. The Yangtze River received about 30 percent less rainfall than usual in July, and is 60 percent lower than normal for this time of year. Tributaries are also ‘significantly lower’ than in previous years, the committee that manages the water in the river reported.
Lake Poyang, which is responsible for much of the water in the Yangtze in normal summers, received half the amount of rain in July. Local residents now use pumps to get the water from the lake into their fields.