WASHINGTON: Heat waves are setting all-time temperature records across the globe, again. Europe suffered its deadliest fire in more than a century, and one of nearly 90 large fires in the US West burned dozens of homes and forced the evacuation of at least 37,000 people near Redding, California. Flood-inducing downpours have pounded the US East this week.
It’s all part of summer — but it’s all being made worse by human-caused climate change, scientists say.
“Weirdness abounds,” said Rutgers University climate scientist Jennifer Francis.
Japan hit 106 degrees on Monday, its hottest temperature ever. Records fell in parts of Massachusetts, Maine, Wyoming, Colorado, Oregon, New Mexico and Texas. And then there’s crazy heat in Europe, where normally chill Norway, Sweden and Finland all saw temperatures they have never seen before on any date, pushing past 90 degrees. So far this month, at least 118 of these all-time heat records have been set or tied across the globe, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The explanations should sound as familiar as the crash of broken records.
“We now have very strong evidence that global warming has already put a thumb on the scales, upping the odds of extremes like severe heat and heavy rainfall,” Stanford University climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh said. “We find that global warming has increased the odds of record-setting hot events over more than 80 percent of the planet, and has increased the odds of record-setting wet events at around half of the planet.”
Climate change is making the world warmer because of the build-up of heat-trapping gases from the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil and other human activities. And experts say the jet stream — which dictates weather in the Northern Hemisphere — is again behaving strangely.
“An unusually sharply kinked jet stream has been stuck in place for weeks now,” said Jeff Masters, director of the private Weather Underground. He says that allows the heat to stay in place over three areas where the kinks are: Europe, Japan and the western United States.
The same jet stream pattern caused the 2003 European heat wave, the 2010 Russian heat wave and fires, the 2011 Texas and Oklahoma drought and the 2016 Canadian wildfires, Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann said, pointing to past studies by him and others. He said in an email that these extremes are “becoming more common because of human-caused climate change and in particular, the amplified warming in the Arctic.”
Climate scientists have long said they can’t directly link single weather events, like a heat wave, to human caused climate change without extensive study. In the past decade they have used observations, statistics and computer simulations to calculate if global warming increases the chances of the events.
A study by European scientists Friday found that the ongoing European heat wave is twice as likely because of human-caused global warming, though those conclusions have not yet been confirmed by outside scientists. The World Weather Attribution team said they compared three-day heat measurements and forecasts for the Netherlands, Denmark and Ireland with historical records going back to the early 1900s.
“The world is becoming warmer and so heatwaves like this are becoming more common,” said Friederike Otto, a member of the team and deputy director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford.
Erich Fischer, an expert on weather extremes at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich who wasn’t part of the analysis said the authors used well-established methods to make their conclusions.
Georgia Tech climate scientist Kim Cobb said the link between climate change and fires isn’t as strong as it is with heat waves, but it is becoming clearer.
A devastating fire in Greece — with at least 83 fatalities — is the deadliest fire in Europe since 1900, according to the International Disaster Database run by the Center for the Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels, Belgium.
In the United States on Friday there were 89 active large fires, consuming nearly 900,000 acres, according the National Interagency Fire Center. So far this year, fires have burned 4.15 million acres, which is nearly 14 percent higher than average over the past 10 years.
The first major science study to connect greenhouse gases to stronger and longer heat waves was in 2004. It was titled “More intense, more frequent and longer lasting heat waves in the 21st century.” Study author Gerald Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research said Friday that now it “reads like a prediction of what has been happening and will continue to happen as long as average temperatures continue to rise with ever-increasing emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels. It’s no mystery.”
Science says record heat, fires worsened by climate change
Science says record heat, fires worsened by climate change
- A study by European scientists Friday found that the ongoing European heat wave is twice as likely because of human-caused global warming
- In the United States on Friday there were 89 active large fires, consuming nearly 900,000 acres, according the National Interagency Fire Center
UN climate chief asks G20 leaders for boost as finance talks lag
- Negotiators at the COP29 conference in Baku struggle in their negotiations for a deal intended to scale up money to address the worsening impacts of global warming
“Next week’s summit must send crystal clear global signals,” Stiell said in the letter.
He said the signal should support an increase in grants and loans, along with debt relief, so vulnerable countries “are not hamstrung by debt servicing costs that make bolder climate actions all but impossible.”
Business leaders echoed Stiell’s plea, saying they were concerned about the “lack of progress and focus in Baku.”
“We call on governments, led by the G20, to meet the moment and deliver the policies for an accelerated shift from fossil fuels to a clean energy future, to unlock the essential private sector investment needed,” said a coalition of business groups, including the We Mean Business Coalition, United Nations Global Compact and the Brazilian Council for Sustainable Development, in a separate letter.
Success at this year’s UN climate summit hinges on whether countries can agree on a new finance target for richer countries, development lenders and the private sector to deliver each year. Developing countries need at least $1 trillion annually by the end of the decade to cope with climate change, economists told the UN talks.
But negotiators have made slow progress midway through the two-week conference. A draft text of the deal, which earlier this week was 33-pages long and comprised of dozens of wide-ranging options, had been pared down to 25 pages as of Saturday.
Sweden’s climate envoy, Mattias Frumerie, said the finance negotiations had not yet cracked the toughest issues: how big the target should be, or which countries should pay.
“The divisions we saw coming into the meeting are still there, which leaves quite a lot of work for ministers next week,” he said.
European negotiators have said large oil-producing nations including Saudi Arabia are also blocking discussions on how to take forward last year’s COP28 summit deal to transition the world away from fossil fuels.
Saudi Arabia’s government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Progress on this issue has been dire so far, one European negotiator said.
Uganda’s energy minister, Ruth Nankabirwa, said her country’s priority was to leave COP29 with a deal on affordable financing for clean energy projects.
“When you look around and you don’t have the money, then we keep wondering whether we will ever walk the journey of a real energy transition,” she said.
Protesters’ biggest day expected at UN climate talks, where progress is slow
- Several experts have said $1 trillion a year or more is needed both to compensate for such damages and to pay for a clean-energy transition that most countries can’t afford on their own
BAKU: The United Nations climate talks neared the end of their first week on Saturday with negotiators still at work on how much wealthier nations will pay for developing countries to adapt to planetary warming. Meanwhile, activists planned actions on what is traditionally their biggest protest day during the two-week talks.
The demonstration in Baku, Azerbaijan is expected to be echoed at sites around the world in a global “day of action” for climate justice that’s become an annual event.
Negotiators at COP29, as the talks are known, will return to a hoped-for deal that might be worth hundreds of billions of dollars to poorer nations. Many are in the Global South and already suffering the costly impacts of weather disasters fueled by climate change. Several experts have said $1 trillion a year or more is needed both to compensate for such damages and to pay for a clean-energy transition that most countries can’t afford on their own.
Panama environment minister Juan Carlos Navarro told The Associated Press he is “not encouraged” by what he’s seeing at COP29 so far.
“What I see is a lot of talk and very little action,” he said, noting that Panama is among the group of countries least responsible for warming emissions but most vulnerable to the damage caused by climate change-fueled disasters. He added that financing was not a point of consensus at the COP16 biodiversity talks this year, which suggests to him that may be a sticking point at these talks as well.
“We must face these challenges with a true sense of urgency and sincerity,” he said. “We are dragging our feet as a planet.”
The talks came in for criticism on several fronts Friday. Two former top UN officials signed a letter that suggested the process needs to shift from negotiation to implementation. And others, including former US Vice President Al Gore, criticized the looming presence of the fossil fuel industry and fossil-fuel-reliant nations in the talks. One analysis found at least 1,770 people with fossil fuel ties on the attendees list for the Baku talks.
Progress may get a boost as many nations’ ministers, whose approval is necessary for whatever negotiators do, arrive in the second week.
US plane hit by gunfire on Dallas runway: aviation agency
WASHINGTON: A Southwest Airlines plane was hit by gunfire while taking off from an airport in the US city of Dallas on Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
“While taxiing for takeoff at Dallas Love Field Airport, Southwest Airlines Flight 2494 was reportedly struck by gunfire near the cockpit,” a statement on the FAA’s website said.
“The Boeing 737-800 returned to the gate, where passengers deplaned.”
The incident happened at around 8:30 p.m. Friday (0230 GMT Saturday), with the flight headed from Dallas, Texas, to Indianapolis, Indiana.
There were no reported injuries, according to a statement from Dallas Love Field Airport on social media platform X.
Investigation reveals a Russian factory’s plan to mix decoys with a new deadly weapon in Ukraine
- Unarmed decoys now make up more than half the drones targeting Ukraine and as much as 75 percent of the new drones coming out of the factory in Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone
KYIV: A high-tech factory in central Russia has created a new, deadly force to attack Ukraine: a small number of highly destructive thermobaric drones surrounded by huge swarms of cheap foam decoys.
The plan, which Russia dubbed Operation False Target, is intended to force Ukraine to expend scarce resources to save lives and preserve critical infrastructure, including by using expensive air defense munitions, according to a person familiar with Russia’s production and a Ukrainian electronics expert who hunts them from his specially outfitted van.
Neither radar, sharpshooters nor even electronics experts can tell which drones are deadly in the skies.
Here’s what to know from AP’s investigation:
A deadly mix
Unarmed decoys now make up more than half the drones targeting Ukraine and as much as 75 percent of the new drones coming out of the factory in Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone, according to the person familiar with Russia’s production, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the industry is highly sensitive, and the Ukrainian electronics expert.
The same factory produces a particularly deadly variant of the Shahed unmanned aircraft armed with thermobaric warheads, the person said.
During the first weekend of November, the Kyiv region spent 20 hours under air alert, and the sound of buzzing drones mingled with the boom of air defenses and rifle shots. In October, Moscow attacked with at least 1,889 drones – 80 percent more than in August, according to an AP analysis tracking the drones for months.
On Saturday, Russia launched 145 drones across Ukraine, just days after the re-election of Donald Trump threw into doubt US support for the country.
Since summer, most drones crash, are shot down or are diverted by electronic jamming, according to an AP analysis of the Ukrainian military briefings. Less than 6 percent hit a discernible target, according to the data analyzed by AP since the end of July. But the sheer numbers mean a handful can slip through every day – and that is enough to be deadly.
The drone lab
Tatarstan’s Alabuga zone, an industrial complex about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) east of Moscow, is a laboratory for Russian drone production. Originally set up in 2006 to attract businesses and investment to Tatarstan, it expanded after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and some sectors switched to military production, adding new buildings and renovating existing sites, according to satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press.
In social media videos, the factory promoted itself as an innovation hub. But David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security said Alabuga’s current purpose is purely to produce and sell drones to Russia‘s Ministry of Defense. The videos and other promotional media were taken down after an AP investigation found that many of the African women recruited to fill labor shortages there complained they were duped into taking jobs at the plant.
Russia and Iran signed a $1.7 billion deal for the Shaheds in 2022, after President Vladimir Putin invaded neighboring Ukraine, and Moscow began using Iranian imports of the unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, in battle later that year. Soon after the deal was signed, production started in Alabuga.
The most fearsome Shahed adaptation so far designed at the plant is armed with thermobarics, also known as vacuum bombs, the person with knowledge of Russian drone production said.
The plan to develop unarmed decoy drones at Alabuga was developed in late 2022, according to the person with knowledge of Russian drone production. Production of the decoys started earlier this year, said the person, who agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity. Now the plant turns out about 40 of the unarmed drones a day and around 10 armed ones, which are more expensive and take longer to produce.
The vacuum bomb
From a military point of view, thermobarics are ideal for going after targets that are either inside fortified buildings or deep underground. They create a vortex of high pressure and heat that penetrates the thickest walls and, at the same time, sucks out all the oxygen in their path.
Alabuga’s thermobaric drones are particularly destructive when they strike buildings, because they are also loaded with ball bearings to cause maximum damage even beyond the superheated blast.
Serhii Beskrestnov, a Ukrainian electronics expert and more widely known as Flash whose black military van is kitted out with electronic jammers to down drones, said the thermobarics were first used over the summer and estimated they now make up between 3 percent and 5 percent of all drones.
They have a fearsome reputation because of the physical effects even on people caught outside the initial blast site: Collapsed lungs, crushed eyeballs, brain damage, according to Arthur van Coller, an expert in international humanitarian law at South Africa’s University of Fort Hare.
For Russia, the benefits are huge.
An unarmed drone costs considerably less than the estimated $50,000 for an armed Shahed drone and a tiny fraction of the cost of even a relatively inexpensive air defense missile. One decoy with a live-feed camera allows the aircraft to geolocate Ukraine’s air defenses and relay the information to Russia in the final moments of its mechanical life. And the swarms have become a demoralizing fact of life for Ukrainians.
Ten babies die in fire at Indian hospital’s neonatal unit
- The blaze broke out late on Friday at the Maharani Laxmibai Medical College in Jhansi district
LUCKNOW: Ten newborn babies died from burns and suffocation after a fire swept through a neonatal intensive care unit in northern India, a government official said on Saturday.
The blaze broke out late on Friday at the Maharani Laxmibai Medical College in Jhansi district about 285 km (180 miles) southwest of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state.
Emergency responders rescued 38 newborns from the ward, which housed 49 infants at the time of the incident, said state Deputy Chief Minister Brajesh Pathak.
“Seventeen of the injured are receiving treatment in different wings and some private hospitals,” Pathak told reporters in Jhansi. Seven of the deceased infants have been identified, while the authorities are working to identify the remaining three, he said.
One infant remains missing, said a government official who asked not to be identified as he is not authorized to speak to media.
The cause of the fire remains unknown. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ordered an inquiry into the incident.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed condolences over the “heart-wrenching” incident.
“My deepest condolences to those who lost their innocent children in this,” Modi posted on the X platform. “I pray to God to give them the strength to bear this immense loss.”
