Climate Change Is Behind Our Hot and Dangerous Summer

The effects of global warming are turning deadly around the world.

climate change
A firefighter tries to extinguish hotspots during a wildfire in Kineta, near Athens, on July 23, 2018.(VALERIE GACHE/AFP/Getty Images)
AFP/Getty Images

On July 17, the thermometer in Sodankyla, Finland, registered a record-breaking 90 degrees, a remarkable temperature given that the town is 59 miles north of the Arctic Circle, in a region known for winter snowmobiling and reindeer, writes The Washington Post. 

It is just one sign of many of the hot, strange and dangerous summer that is happening across the northern hemisphere.

The Post writes that Greece is in mourning after scorching heat and high winds fueled wildfires, killing more than 80. Meanwhile, Japan recorded its highest temperature in history, 106 degrees, during a week-long heat wave that killed 65 people and left 22,000 hospitalized.

This was shortly after a catastrophic flood killed 200. In Ouargla, Algeria, temperatures hit 124 degrees on July 5, which is likely a record for the continent of Africa. And in Quriyat, Oman, meteorologists were amazed on June 28 because the low for the day was 109 degrees. It was the hottest low temperature ever recorded on Earth.

Scientists say the brutal weather has been supercharged by human-induced climate change, reports The Post. But on top of that, a warming world is prone to many types of extreme weather, such as heavier downpours, stronger hurricanes and longer droughts.

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