2021, year of extreme weather events

Barely two days to live in 2021, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), presented a perfect example of how the combined impacts of natural climate variability and the climate crisis are happening right before our eyes, with water as channeling element of extreme phenomena.

In this way, as it did in summer with a devastating analysis, the WMO once again recalls that water is becoming the “ main vehicle through which we feel the effects of climate change”, being floods, the melting of the glaciers, and droughts its highest standards.

He cites as an example the extreme rains that hit China's Henan province on July 17-21, leaving places like Zhengzhou with nearly 202mm of rain in one hour (a Chinese national record) and 720mm for the event as a whole. more than its annual average.

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It also exposes the case of Western Europe, which experienced some of the most severe floodings on record in July. Parts of Germany and Belgium received 100-150mm over a wide area from July 14-15 over already saturated terrain, leading to floods and landslides and more than 200 deaths.

The persistent rains above average in the first half of the year in parts of northern South America, particularly in the northern basin of the Amazon, also caused significant and long-lasting flooding in the region. The Rio Negro in Manaus, Brazil, reached its highest level on record. The floods also affected parts of eastern Africa, with South Sudan particularly affected.

On the other hand, a significant drought affected much of subtropical South America for the second year in a row. “Rainfall was well below average in much of southern Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and northern Argentina,” says WMO, while reporting that this drought contributed to a humanitarian crisis in parts of the Horn of Africa, including Somalia, and in southern Madagascar. (Extreme weather events in 2021)

In this regard, WMO reports that it has established a Coalition on Water and Climate to improve services, infrastructures, and multi-hazard services related to water globally, adopting meteorological, hydrological, and climate services as a unit of the system. land.

In addition to water, temperatures remain one of the biggest indicators of climate change. This is the case of the heatwave that was felt in the province of British Columbia, in Canada, at the end of June, the temperature records in Death Valley or the high temperatures registered in the Mediterranean and that prompted the appearance of major fires.

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The WMO notes in this summary that the power of supercomputing and satellite technology helped to forecast and monitor many of the extreme events of 2021, which in some way reduced mortality in many regions of the world.

However, recalls that there are gaps in meteorological observing networks in many least developed and small countries, and therefore encourages in the coming years to mobilize financial resources to strengthen these networks and fill the large gaps in basic meteorological and climate data, which are "critical to effective weather forecasting and adaptation efforts ."

“There is also a growing need to invest in monitoring greenhouse gas budgets by using terrestrial, satellite, and simulation models to better understand sinks, sources, and behavior of carbon dioxide, methane, and carbon dioxide. nitrous oxide ”, warns the WMO.

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