While the world frets (rightly) about COVID-19,
terrible temperature records are being set:
Record
high temperatures have been plaguing the Middle East, the mercury
soaring to extreme levels during a blistering and unforgiving heat wave.
Baghdad surged to its highest temperature ever recorded Tuesday.
Tuesday’s
preliminary high of 125.2 degrees (51.8 Celsius) in Iraq’s capital city
shatters its previous record of 123.8 degrees set on July 30, 2015, for
any day of the year.
On Wednesday, Baghdad followed up with a
temperature of 124 degrees, its second-highest temperature on record. On Monday, it had reached
123 degrees.
The crippling heat forced many residents indoors, and street sellers had
to seek whatever shade they could find. With the state electricity grid
failing, many households were relying on generators to power fridges,
fans or air-conditioning units, the machines adding a guttural hum to
the city’s already-noisy streets.
Yes: the failure of a power supply in heat like that is surely an invitation to death.
2 comments:
Its at least possible that a wind that is higher in CO2 passing over a bone dry area could have some sort of effect. But its more likely to be for other reasons. In all areas where the wind is not dry any warming effect is already pre-empted by water vapour. So promise yourself that you will support the greening of the desert and let your heart not be troubled for the planet taken in its entirety.
Just shows that you need to green the deserts everywhere so you have that built in air conditioner. Its possible that the suns energy could pick up next century for unknown reasons and if the deserts aren't greened, and therefore air-conditioned, that could lead to genocidal consequences. We saw what happened last December right here in Australia when a dry wind gets to pick up heat across a huge expanse of dry land. And thats what the Middle East is copping now. It doesn't need to be that way. Deserts and dry land are dangerous for all of us.
In the tropical zones EXTRA evaporation does tend to lead to an accumulation of joules since these are places where a pocket of saturated air doesn't necessarily rise straight up. This is not manifested by heat records but by the tropical zone expanding. But in the former deserts, in the rehabilitated desert the new evaporation is definitely a refrigerant during the day time. Because in typically dry air new evaporation will head straight up. No more dry land means essentially no more heat waves.
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