Severe heatwave and massive flooding; world needs to get ready for extreme weather

Severe heatwave in Europe and the US and massive flooding in Asia.The world is currently witnessing extreme weather events and record temperatures even as the World Meteorological Organisation warned nations to be prepared in the coming months and declared the onset of the phenomenon El Niño.El Niño is a natural climate pattern in the tropical Pacific Ocean that brings warmer-than-average sea-surface temperatures and has a major influence on weather across the globe, affecting billions of people."The onset of El Niño will greatly increase the likelihood of breaking temperature records and triggering more extreme heat in many parts of the world and in the ocean,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.The declaration "is the signal to governments around the world to mobilise preparations to limit the impacts on our health, our ecosystems and our economies.”To save lives and livelihoods, governments must establish early warning systems and prepare for further disruptive weather events this year, he said.The target of keeping long-term global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius is moving out of reach, climate experts say, with nations failing to set more ambitious goals despite months of record-breaking heat on land and sea.As envoys gathered in Bonn in early June to prepare for this year’s annual climate talks in November, average global surface air temperatures were more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for several days, the EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said.Countries agreed in Paris in 2015 to try to keep long-term average temperature rises within 1.5C, but there is now a 66% likelihood the annual mean will cross the 1.5C threshold for at least one whole year between now and 2027, the World Meteorological Organisation predicted in May.Although mean temperatures had temporarily breached the 1.5C threshold before, this was the first time they had done so in the northern hemisphere summer that starts on June 1. Sea temperatures also broke April and May records."We have run out of time because change takes time,” Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, a climatologist at Australia’s University of New South Wales told Reuters.Parts of North America were some 10C above the seasonal average this month, and smoke from forest fires blanketed Canada and the US East Coast in hazardous haze, with carbon emissions estimated at a record 160mn metric tonnes.In India and Pakistan, one of the most climate vulnerable regions, deaths were reported to have spiked, first, as a result of sustained high temperatures and later floods, and extreme heat has been recorded in Spain, Italy, Greece in Europe and Iran and Vietnam, raising fears that last year’s deadly summer could become routine.Climate experts say the extent and frequency of extreme weather is increasing, and this year has also seen punishing droughts across the world, as well as a rare and deadly cyclone in Africa.The Worldwide Fund for Nature, however, warned of a "worrying lack of momentum” with little progress made on key issues like fossil fuels and finance ahead of November’s COP28 climate talks in Dubai.Climatologists warn floods, fires and deadly heat are the alarm bells of a planet on the brink!