Published:
May 8, 2023 09:15 GMT
Climate experts have attributed the intense heat to the return of El Niño, which has major impacts on weather patterns around the world.
Meteorologists warn of record temperature levels in Asia for this 2023 after having registered the “hottest April” in history in the region.
According to Wang Jingyu, an assistant professor at the National Institute of Education in Singapore, who researches climate modeling and land-atmosphere interaction, last month was the “warmest April in Asia,” collect South China Morning Post.
Vietnam recorded the highest temperature in its history, 44 degrees Celsius, during the past weekend in the commune of Hoi Xuan, in the province of Thanh Hóa (in the north of the country), which caused warnings of power shortages. Likewise, in Thailand temperatures exceeded 50 degrees Celsius.
While in the Philippines, school hours were reduced after the heat index will reach the “danger” zone, a potentially deadly combination of heat and humidity. In India, at least 13 people died from heat stroke and dozens were hospitalized during an outdoor event in Mumbai in mid-April as temperatures approached 45 degrees.
Elsewhere in Asia, high temperatures have also affected parts of China, Malaysia and Bangladesh in recent weeks.
Climate experts have attributed the intense heat to return of El Nino, which has major impacts on weather patterns around the world. For one, it could bring relief to drought-parched areas of Argentina and the southern US, while parts of Asia and Australia are hit with hotter, drier conditions, according to Bloomberg.
For his part, Benjamin Horton, director of the Singapore Earth Observatory at Nanyang Technological University, suggests that the extreme heat wave is not solely due to “the recent amount of unprecedented extreme weather events“, but also to the climate crisis caused by human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and changes in land use, which release high levels of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which trap heat and warm the planet.
Meanwhile, governments are seeking to create action plans to protect public health and avoid disruptions to agriculture and power generation.
