By Afza Arshad
Do you remember the summer season two years ago? Year 2022 it was called the hottest summer ever that year it was so hot in Pakistan that it broke the 122 year old record. But then came the summer of 2023, in 2023 the summer season was so scorching hot that scientist said that it was the hottest summer in the last 2000 years but then we come to the year 2024,
- January 2024, hottest January ever recorded
- February 2024, hottest February ever recorded
- March 2024, hottest March ever recorded
- April 2024, hottest month ever recorded
The last 11 months on earth have been record breaking in term of heat. The scorching heat that you have to bear today is not normal and we are not alone. Last month in Pakistan, and in the entire south Asia record breaking heat waves have been seen Singapore Malaysia, Indonesia everywhere there was such unbearable temperatures in the Philippines. The heat index had crossed 53°C. In Uttarakhand there were forest fires. In the first week of May forest fires were seen in Odisha, Madhya, and Jharkhand etc. Heat wave warnings are being issued all over the country even in places, like Kerala, and now temperature have been soaring above 46° C in North Pakistan. Global warming and climate change are the main reasons behind all this.
Are they the only reasons?
What is the solution at the local level?
What can we do to avoid this heat?
First we need to understand that such extreme weather’s event are not only seen in Pakistan or Southeast Asia, but also in every corner of the world. What happen in South America this month at least 83 people were died after days of heavy rain in southern Brazil and more than 100 are missing there were devastating floods in Brazil entire cities were submerged.
There is one weather event behind all these destruction which is considered the biggest cause of. El Nino
El Nino is a natural cycle of the earth’s climate that is seen every 5 to 7 years, but due to climate change, it is becoming more extreme year after year. The full name of this cycle is El Nino Southern oscillation. Inshort, it is called ENSO. According to the world health organization, this is the second biggest cause that changes, the climate of the earth, and on the first place is the relationship between the Earth and the sun. Earth revolve around the sun, which causes the seasons to change winter following summer and summer following winter, but after that affect, El Niño has the second biggest impact.
What is El Niño? It is something that can be seen in the Pacific Ocean Wind blow over the Pacific Ocean flowing from east to west Winds are called trade winds in most of the time they move from the Americas to the direction of Asia and Australia because it’s based on earth rotation. Since earth rotates from west to east due to this Coriolis effect, that trade winds flow in the opposite direction due to this normally, the water on the surface of specific ocean starts snowing towards the west it means it starts flowing towards Australia, and when the water on the surface starts flowing in that direction in the east, the water below the surface level of the sea start rising on the surface that is near south America. The water from the depths of the seas rises towards the surface. This is called upwelling. The water that rises from the depths of the ocean is much colder, comparatively and has more nutrients so in this normal situation, the hot water goes to Australia and the cold water came to South America. Then water is hot it evaporates more easily, and because of that evaporation clouds are formed and more rain is seen near Australia. But now that trade winds have weakened. These winds are not flowing as strongly over the specific ocean.
What will happen?
The upwelling will be weak, it will be almost non-existent the hot water on the surface will consistently remain hot. The clouds that were supposed to bring rain to Australia can rain anywhere over the specific ocean, so the Australia region will become very dry. This is the phenomena of El Niño which is like a regular cycle but this is not a regular cycle. Sometimes it happens every four years sometimes after five years sometimes after seven years, but when El Niño happens it last for 6 to 12 months, but during the El Niño, the weather patterns of the world change in Australia and Southeast Asia, it causes higher temperatures and drier weather conditions. The risk of heat waves increases. And the wildfires that took place in Australia you might remember the violent Australian wildlife of 2020 even that was caused by this El Niño. The last El Nino event was in 2018_19. which lasted till January 2020 this is why the bush fires in Australia happen in December 2019 since then today from January 2023 till now and other El Niño is in effect the interesting thing here is that in South America, El Niño has the opposite effect as it has in Asia and Australia that is it rains more there the risk of floods increases. This is why today we see many devastating floods in Brazil now, apart from this, there is an opposite phenomena of El Niño, which is La Niña. Both these words are from Spanish. The normal conditions of the specific ocean as I told you normally if they go to extremes then the La Niña affect is seen. After the El Niño of 2018_19 then La Niña came in 2020_21 it became so extreme that it caused flooding in Australia it raised so heavily in Australia. The strongest El Niño event till date was seen in 2015_16 after that was the 1997_98 event followed by the current 2023_24 event, El Niño is a big reason why the summers of 2023 and 2024 were very hot
Because of which,
Droughts were seen in the southern African countries.
Even the heavy rains and floods in Dubai were caused by it.
To some extent scientist, believe that climate change caused by humans is making the El Niño affect more extreme that is flood caused by El Niño are becoming more dangerous. Heat waves are becoming more and more violent. This is why in Kerala a heat wave warning has been issued only twice. The first time was in 2016 and the second time was in 2024 what time during an El Niño event
Now there is another effect that increases the impact of the heat wave at the local level, an effect that is much easier to solve and it is the urban heat island effect.
Glass in buildings Grates in buildings all these things are absorbed sunlight and in a city, when lots of concrete is held together without proper ventilation, there is no air. What happens is that throughout the day, the entire heat in absorbed the sir does not circulate much and at night te absorbed heat is released out into the air.
What can we do to avoid this heat?
- Have proper walkable places
- Cities should be designed where the temperature outside is comfortable there is enough greenery that people can walk to where they need to go.
- Cars should be used as little as possible because cars also release heat
- Promoting public transport
- Avoided to use air conditioners and used their natural alternatives like radiant cooling.
Student of International Islamic University Islamabad
