62.2°C in Dubai

Taxslave2

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The Persian Gulf is enduring life-threatening heat indexes above 140 degrees
Author of the article:Washington Post
Washington Post
Dan Stillman
Published Jul 19, 2024 • 3 minute read

The heat and humidity in the Persian Gulf region have soared to nearly intolerable levels this week, and there’s little relief in sight.


Some locations have seen the heat index, or how it feels when factoring in the humidity, reach 140 to 150 degrees Fahrenheit (60 to 65 Celsius), fueled by an intense heat dome, the warmest water temperatures in the world and the influence of human-caused climate change.

Temperatures at the Persian Gulf International Airport in Asaluyeh, Iran, climbed to 108 (42 C) on Wednesday and 106 (41 C) on Thursday, with both days recording a peak heat index of 149 (65 C). In Dubai, the temperature topped out at 113 (45 C) on Tuesday and the heat index soared to 144 (62 C) Other extreme heat indexes in recent days include 141 (61 C) in Abu Dhabi and 136 (58 C) at Khasab Air Base in Oman.

Last August, this same region experienced even more extreme heat indexes, climbing as high as 158 degrees (70 C).


The maximum air temperatures this week – generally between 105 and 115 (41 and 46 C) – have only been somewhat above normal. But the dew points – which are a measure of humidity – have been excessive, climbing well into the 80s (27 to 32 C). In the United States, any dew point over 70 degrees (21 C) is considered uncomfortably humid.

It’s the very high dew points that have propelled heat indexes up to 30 degrees (16 C) above actual air temperatures.

The extreme humidity levels are tied to bathtub-like water temperatures in the Persian Gulf, the warmest in the world. According to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data, sea surface temperatures are as warm as 95 degrees (35 C).

Largely because of the high humidity, nighttime minimum temperatures have also remained exceptionally warm, in many cases staying above 85 (29 C). Temperatures in Iranshar, Iran, only dropped to 97 (36 C) on Wednesday night, its hottest July night on record.


A Washington Post analysis found that the wet-bulb globe temperature, which measures the amount of heat stress on the human body, reached 96 (36 C) at the Persian Gulf International Airport and 95 (35 C) in Dubai, exceeding the threshold of 89.6 (32 C) that researchers have said poses a risk to human survival if such heat is prolonged. The wet-bulb globe temperature, which was calculated using data from nearby weather stations, takes into account a combination of temperature, humidity, wind and clouds.

Researchers have identified the Persian Gulf among the regions most likely to regularly exceed life-threatening heat thresholds during the next 30 to 50 years. Dubai was recently ranked as the city having the most dangerous summer heat in the world, with dangerous heat on 89 percent of summer days. Doha, Qatar, came in second.


There were also numerous heat records in the same region last week, according to weather historian Maximiliano Herrera. The United Arab Emirates saw a scorching high temperature of 123 while Adrar, Algeria, tied its record of 122 (50 C). Cities in both Kuwait and Iraq reached 126 (52 C), and Al Ahsa, Saudi Arabia, notched an record of 124 (51 C). The city of Amarah recorded Iraq’s warmest nighttime low on record at 102 (39 C).

The exceptional heat and humidity is the result of a sprawling area of high pressure called a heat dome, extremely warm water temperatures and human-caused climate change.

The same heat dome has spread record heat northward into Eastern Europe, westward into northern Africa, and eastward into India, Pakistan and Indonesia. In Eastern Europe, high temperatures surpassed 104 (40 C) with some locations staying above 85 degrees (29 C) at night. The temperature in Algeria hit 122 (50 C).


It was so hot in Greece on Wednesday that officials closed the Acropolis for five hours, according to the Associated Press.

The intense July heat comes after the temperature reached 125 (52 C) in Saudi Arabia in June, leading to hundreds of deaths from heatstroke during the Hajj pilgrimage. Also in June, nighttime temperatures remained as high as 95 (35 C) in Delhi on June 18.

Dangerous, record-setting heat swept across five continents in June, which was Earth’s hottest June on record according to NOAA. Scientists say the heat waves show how human-caused climate change has made life-threatening temperatures more common.
May Allah be praised.
 

Jinentonix

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I feel sooo bad for all the super fucking obscenely wealthy dickheads in Dubai. "Hey, let's a make playground for the super uber-rich in the desert. It'll be fun".
 
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Taxslave2

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DO you think they would do any better at -40?
I have mostly been in temperate rainforest, except for a couple of brief stints at -40. Hated it. I'm curious because a long time ago my buddy's older sister drug a guy from Africa home to the coast for christmas. Poor dude had never seen snow before, and it was one of the years we had a few inches. Every time he looked out the window, he would shiver. Not like it ever gets really cold on the coast. He was wrapped up in a coat and a blanket and had the heat cranked. The rest of us would be in t shirts.
 

petros

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Nov 21, 2008
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DO you think they would do any better at -40?
I have mostly been in temperate rainforest, except for a couple of brief stints at -40. Hated it. I'm curious because a long time ago my buddy's older sister drug a guy from Africa home to the coast for christmas. Poor dude had never seen snow before, and it was one of the years we had a few inches. Every time he looked out the window, he would shiver. Not like it ever gets really cold on the coast. He was wrapped up in a coat and a blanket and had the heat cranked. The rest of us would be in t shirts.
Come to SK in October. By Christmas you'll think -15 feels the same as +5. The dry air is nice on the bones too.
 

pgs

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Come to SK in October. By Christmas you'll think -15 feels the same as +5. The dry air is nice on the bones too.
But you are still in Saskatchewan. At least on the coast we have something to look at when the rain lets up .
 

spaminator

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Earth’s temperature hit another all-time record high on Sunday
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
By Seth Borenstein
Published Jul 23, 2024 • 3 minute read

WASHINGTON — On Sunday, the Earth sizzled to the hottest day ever measured by humans, yet another heat record shattered in the past couple of years, according to the European climate service Copernicus on Tuesday.


Copernicus’ preliminary data shows that the global average temperature Sunday was 17.09 C, beating the record set just last year on July 6, 2023, by 0.01 C. Both Sunday’s mark and last year’s record obliterate the previous record of 16.8 C, which itself was only a few years old, set in 2016.

Without human-caused climate change, records would be broken nowhere near as frequently, and new cold records would be set as often as hot ones.

“What is truly staggering is how large the difference is between the temperature of the last 13 months and the previous temperature records,” Copernius director Carlo Buontempo said in a statement. “We are now in truly uncharted territory and as the climate keeps warming, we are bound to see new records being broken in future months and years.”


While 2024 has been extremely warm, what kicked Sunday into new territory was a way toastier than usual Antarctic winter, according to Copernicus. The same thing was happening on the southern continent last year when the record was set in early July.



But it wasn’t just a warmer Antarctica on Sunday. Interior California baked with triple-digit temperatures in Fahrenheit, complicating more than two dozen fires in the U.S. West. At the same time, Europe sweltered through its own deadly heat wave.

“It’s certainly a worrying sign coming on the heels of 13 straight record-setting months,” said Berkeley Earth climate scientist Zeke Hausfather, who now estimates there’s a 92% chance that 2024 will beat 2023 as the warmest year on record.


July is generally the hottest month of the year globally, mostly because there is more land in the Northern hemisphere, so seasonal patterns there drive global temperatures.

Copernicus records go back to 1940, but other global measurements by the United States and United Kingdom governments go back even further, to 1880. Many scientists, taking those into consideration along with tree rings and ice cores, say last year’s record highs were the hottest the planet has been in about 120,000 years. Now the first six months of 2024 have broken even those.

Scientists blame the supercharged heat mostly on climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas and on livestock agriculture. Other factors include a natural El Nino warming of the central Pacific Ocean, which has since ended. Reduced marine fuel pollution and possibly an undersea volcanic eruption are also causing some additional warmth, but those aren’t as important as greenhouse gases trapping heat, they said.


Because El Nino is likely to be soon replaced by a cooling La Nina, Hausfather said he would be surprised if 2024 sees any more monthly records, but the hot start of the year is still probably enough to make it warmer than last year.

Sure Sunday’s mark is notable but “what really kind of makes your eyeballs jump out” is how the last few years have been so much hotter than previous marks, said Northern Illinois University climate scientist Victor Gensini, who wasn’t part of the Copernicus team. “It’s certainly a fingerprint of climate change.”

University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann said the difference between this year’s and last year’s high marks is so tiny and so preliminary that he is surprised the European climate agency is promoting it.

“We should really never be comparing absolute temperatures for individual days,” Mann said in an email.

Yes, it’s a small difference, Gensini said in an interview, but there have been more than 30,500 days since Copernicus data started in 1940, and this is the hottest of all of them.

“What matters is this,” said Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler. “The warming will continue as long as we’re dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and we have the technology to largely stop doing that today. What we lack is political will.”
 

spaminator

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Monday breaks the record for the hottest ever day on Earth
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Sibi Arasu
Published Jul 24, 2024 • 2 minute read

Monday was recorded as the hottest day ever globally, beating a record set the day before, as countries around the world from Japan to Bolivia to the United States continue to feel the heat, according to the European climate change service.


Provisional satellite data published by Copernicus on Wednesday showed that Monday broke the previous day’s record by 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.1 degree Fahrenheit).

Climate scientists say the world is now as warm as it was 125,000 years ago because of human-caused climate change. While scientists cannot be certain that Monday was the very hottest day throughout that period, average temperatures have not been this high since long before humans developed agriculture.

The temperature rise in recent decades is in line with what climate scientists projected would happen if humans kept burning fossil fuels at an increasing rate.

“We are in an age where weather and climate records are frequently stretched beyond our tolerance levels, resulting in insurmountable loss of lives and livelihoods,” Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.


Copernicus’ preliminary data shows the global average temperature Monday was 17.15 degrees Celsius, or 62.87 degrees Fahrenheit. The previous record before this week was set just a year ago. Before last year, the previous recorded hottest day was in 2016 when average temperatures were at 16.8 degrees Celsius, or 62.24 degrees Fahrenheit.

While 2024 has been extremely warm, what kicked this week into new territory was a warmer-than-usual Antarctic winter, according to Copernicus. The same thing happened on the southern continent last year when the record was set in early July.

Copernicus records go back to 1940, but other global measurements by the United States and United Kingdom governments go back even further, to 1880. Many scientists, taking those into consideration along with tree rings and ice cores, say last year’s record highs were the hottest the planet has been in about 120,000 years. Now the first six months of 2024 have broken even those.

Without human-caused climate change, scientists say that extreme temperature records would not be broken nearly as frequently as is happening in recent years.

Former head of U.N. climate negotiations Christiana Figueres said “we all scorch and fry” if the world doesn’t immediately change course.

“One third of global electricity can be produced by solar and wind alone, but targeted national policies have to enable that transformation,” she said.
 

spaminator

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Dubai’s brush with 60C ‘feels like’ heat shows dangers ahead
Author of the article:Bloomberg News
Bloomberg News
Verity Ratcliffe
Published Jul 30, 2024 • 3 minute read
Dubai, the Middle Eastern financial hub, has been buffeted by humidity and heat waves that’s already caused temperatures to feel higher than 60C (140F) several days this summer.


On July 20, for example, temperatures hit a high of 42C at Dubai International Airport, according to data from the U.S. National Weather Service. However, intense humidity that day compounded the heat to make it feel like more than 62C, according to the weather service’s heat index, which combines both metrics to express how the temperature feels to the human body.

The U.S. weather service says such heat poses “extreme danger” to humans because heat stroke is likely. Though humidity has eased in the last few days, the searing temperatures in the desert city come as the Middle East heats up at one of the fastest paces in the world.

More than 1,300 pilgrims died at the annual Hajj gathering in Saudi Arabia amid soaring heat this year, which has also hit agriculture in Egypt and closed offices in Iran. Dubai has already suffered the fallouts of extreme weather in April this year, with record rains lashing the city and leaving homes and highways flooded for days.


This summer the feels-like temperature in Dubai has already surpassed 60C on five days, compared with just one last year and none in 2022, according to the U.S. National Weather Service data. The threshold for “extreme danger” to health — above 54C — has been breached on 13 days this year, compared with 23 days in 2023 and seven the previous year.

Extreme weather conditions are hitting many parts of the world with greater frequency and force as a consequence of climate change and rapid urbanization with countries from Canada to Greece feeling the effects. Yet the Middle East is particularly susceptible because of its desert landscape and proximity to the Persian Gulf.

Climate change is becoming a long-term threat to cities in the region as they expand. According to projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Middle East will see temperatures rise 1.3C by the end of the century under an optimistic scenario and by 4.7C under a pessimistic scenario.


“This will be life-threatening for humans, and even high-temperature tolerant animals such as camels cannot survive in such conditions,” scientists based in the region and beyond said in a paper in Nature’s npj Climate and Atmospheric Science journal.

Representatives of the UAE’s Ministry of Climate Change & Environment didn’t respond to emailed requests for comments. Calls to the ministry’s Dubai and Abu Dhabi offices weren’t answered.

Persian Gulf Waters
The Persian Gulf becomes the world’s hottest sea in the summer, with temperatures regularly exceeding 36C in the shallow waters near the UAE. As a whole, the Gulf is warming at over twice the rate of the world’s oceans and marine heat waves are becoming more frequent and severe.


Caught between the hot desert air and humidity from the sea, coastal regions take the brunt of the impact. Cities face the added challenge of the so-called urban heat island effect. Built-up areas are often 3-4C hotter than rural.

The Middle East as a whole is warming at a rate of 0.45C per decade, 1.66 times higher than the global average. The elderly and very young are at particular risk of heat-related illnesses, as well as those with preexisting conditions such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases and diabetes.

Also, for those who work outside, staying indoors isn’t an option. Hotter conditions can be deadly and highlight entrenched inequalities along socio-economic and ethnic lines in the Gulf countries. White collar workers that spend their days indoors and those with easy access to expensive cooling are able to navigate the impacts of the weather far more easily.

— With assistance from Omar Tamo.
 

Blackleaf

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That's why the 2022 World Cup was held there in November and December.

Oops.

No, I'm thinking of Qatar. Both the same to me. Two tiny Asian nations (Qatar and UAE) that are rich but I wouldn't want to live in because of the oppressive heat and not many places that sell beer.
 

pgs

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That's why the 2022 World Cup was held there in November and December.

Oops.

No, I'm thinking of Qatar. Both the same to me. Two tiny Asian nations (Qatar and UAE) that are rich but I wouldn't want to live in because of the oppressive heat and not many places that sell beer.
You can swim indoors , go snow skiing indoors , plat golf indoors . All air conditioned .