China Still Officially In Summer; City Breaks 30-Year Heat Record (X image @MulanCanton)
Beijing, China: Despite the season changing long ago, Guangzhou, one of China’s biggest cities, is still officially in summer, as temperatures have failed to drop below the threshold considered necessary to mark the change in season. The city that belongs to China’s Guangdong province broke a three-decade heat record, as per the local meteorological service. As of Wednesday, the city had experienced 235 summer days, beating 1994’s 234-day season. This year, summer began on 23 March.
Beijing has witnessed extreme weather events in recent years, with droughts, floods, and heatwaves putting strain on the infrastructure, especially electricity grids.
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The region’s meteorological service pegs the change of seasons to the temperature and not the calendar date. Autumn is considered to start when the five-day average temperature is lower than 22C and generally begins around 9 November. However, the temperatures are forecast to stay at summer levels until at least 18 November, according to a statement published on the provincial government’s WeChat account.
According to Ai Hui, a senior engineer at the Guangzhou Climate and Agricultural Meteorological Centre, the reason behind the long summer was that pressure from the Siberian high, a massive collection of cold, dry air that affects weather patterns in the northern hemisphere, was unusually weak this year. This meant less cold wind had been blowing through Guangzhou. The city’s average temperature is currently 24.9C, 1.2C higher than historical averages, Ai Hui was quoted in Chinese state media. In April, the Guangzhou province was hit by a tornado that killed at least five people and injured dozens. It also experienced severe flooding.
Analysis attributed human-caused climatic conditions to be the reason behind the extreme weather, like deadly disasters, from heatwaves to floods to wildfires. At least a dozen of the most serious events of the last decade could have been avoided if the human population were more mindful.
A long-running heatwave caused record-level use of electricity in the cities across China in 2022. This called for a major power outage.
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The Chinese authorities have since become extremely concerned about energy security, which analysts worry is slowing down the country’s process of weaning itself off coal. China’s record-breaking installation of renewable energy has been regarded as one of the more optimistic developments in relation to global action on climate change.
(With inputs from agencies)
