O que antes era floresta e água agora parece deserto: fotos mostram efeito da seca recorde na Amazônia; veja - Brazil

 

Seca recorde forma ‘desertos’ na Amazônia e ameaça criar onda de refugiados climáticos

Barcos e casas flutuantes encalham no leito dos rios; estiagem tira renda de quem vive da pesca e da agricultura 

 

Brazil

Amazon Rainforest

 

Por Juliana Domingos de Lima e Musuk Nolte (Fotos)

 

 Manacapuru, na região metropolitana de Manaus, é um lugar antigo. Com 100 mil habitantes, já foi vila no fim do século 18 e terra do povo indígena Mura muito antes disso.

Nesse tempo todo, o curso d’água foi a via para o sustento, as tradições e a mobilidade dos moradores da cidade conhecida como “princesinha” do Rio Solimões.

Em 2024, porém, essa estrada fluvial foi bloqueada pela maior seca já registrada no afluente do Amazonas.

O que antes era floresta e água, agora parece deserto. 

Em 12 de outubro, o trecho do Solimões em Manacapuru atingiu 2 metros, segundo a Defesa Civil do Amazonas. É o menor nível desde o início dos registros, há 120 anos.

 

 

 

Em alguns locais do Solimões, no leito do rio totalmente exposto há enormes bancos de areia.

 

Só no Amazonas, são mais de 800 mil pessoas afetadas. Não apenas a Bacia do Solimões, mas todos os 62 municípios do Estado estão em emergência.

Pelo segundo ano seguido, a seca extrema encalha barcos e casas flutuantes, agora escoradas só em troncos, na lama e na areia, o que isola comunidades e obriga moradores a percorrerem longos trechos a pé.

A falta de chuva também está por trás da explosão de incêndios no bioma, que fazem explodir a degradação florestal e espalham a fumaça pelo País. 

 

 

Bloco de concreto jaz em banco de areia em área que deveria estar coberta pelo Rio Negro no bairro de Tarumã, em Manaus • Musuk Nolte/Bertha Foundation

 

 

Henrique Freitas, de 21 anos, mora com a mãe e os irmãos em Manacapuru, e vive da pesca. Com a seca no Solimões, caminha sob sol forte mais de meia hora todo dia para chegar ao rio, que antes estava na porta de casa e recuou dois quilômetros. “Era só descer e entrar na canoa”, disse ao Estadão.

“Às vezes a gente pensa em ir pra cidade, mas tinha de ter ao menos um trabalho fixo”

Henrique Freitas - Pescador

 A seca também atrapalha a agricultura, que completa a (pouca) renda da família Freitas. O principal produto é a banana, mas metade da plantação morreu por falta de chuva.
Fotos: Musuk Nolte/Bertha Foundation

 

Para vender o que restou, eles transportam no ombro cargas de 25 a 40 quilos, por quilômetros, até chegar ao rio. Antes, bastava colocar diretamente no barco.

 

Como o Solimões está na cabeceira da Bacia Amazônica, o impacto se estende para várias regiões da floresta.

 

 

Restos de barco que sofreu acidente em 2023 devido à baixa vazão do Rio Negro, em Iranduba

“Até pegar água pra tomar banho e beber está difícil”, relata outro pescador de Manacapuru, Josué Oliveira, de 51 anos.

A renda caiu praticamente a zero e ele tem andado “mais a pé que de canoa” pelo curso do rio. “Os peixes somem.”

Quando o rio subir, o barco de Oliveira precisará de reforma - ele estima ao menos R$ 6 mil. Por ora, encalhada na terra, a embarcação se deteriora pelo calor.

O governo estadual diz que já distribuiu 3 mil toneladas de alimentos no interior, além de 41 purificadores e 2,4 mil caixas d'água. Já o Ministério da Integração e Desenvolvimento Regional informa repasses de R$ 48,5 milhões ao Amazonas neste ano. 

 

Janderson, filho de Josué, também vive da pesca e da agricultura, inviabilizadas pela seca • Musuk Nolte/Bertha Foundation

 

Eventos extremos desse tipo serão cada vez mais frequentes. Estudo da World Weather Attribution, que reúne pesquisadores do mundo todo, mostrou que a crise climática torna 30 vezes mais prováveis secas como a do ano passado na Amazônia. Em 2024, a estiagem já se repetiu.

A Cúpula do Clima das Nações Unidas (COP-29) será realizada este mês no Azerbaijão para discutir saídas. Os esforços e metas até agora são insuficientes para livrar o planeta do colapso. 

 

Cristiane Cardoso em sua casa flutuante em Iranduba (AM), danificada pela seca • Musuk Nolte/Bertha Foundation

Em Iranduba, cidade na margem esquerda do Solimões, Cristiane Cardoso, de 42 anos, era garçonete de um barco-restaurante, mas perdeu o emprego por causa da seca. E, sem a sustentação da água, a casa flutuante onde vive com os três filhos se partiu. Ela cogita se mudar, o que a tornaria uma refugiada climática.

Bacia amazônicaEm seca recorde pelo segundo ano consecutivo, trechos de afluentes do Rio Amazonas chegam a menor nível em mais de um século

 

 

Segundo relatório da Organização Internacional de Migrações das Nações Unidas, o Brasil registrou 745 mil deslocamentos internos em 2023 por desastres naturais. Para ter segurança de vida nova, porém, os moradores do interior do Amazonas terão de ir mais longe do que a capital.

Em Manaus, o Solimões encontra o Rio Negro e forma o Amazonas, maior curso d’água do mundo em vazão e extensão. Mas em 2024 o Negro também atingiu a menor marca desde o início do século passado.

Chico Carnaúba, pescador de 49 anos, conta que também faltam água potável e peixes em Puraquequara, um dos lagos que secaram perto da capital. O jaraqui, o pacu e o tucunaré, os que mais costuma pegar, desapareceram. “Estamos esquecidos.” 

 

Canais secam e casas encalham em São Francisco do Mainã, deixando comunidade isolada • Musuk Nolte/Bertha Foundation

 

 

Cientistas calculam prejuízo bilionário provocado por ventos fortes no Brasil ( mudança climática )

 

Cientistas calculam prejuízo bilionário provocado por ventos fortes no Brasil — Foto: Reprodução/TV Globo 

 

Desde 2013, os vendavais afetaram 10 milhões de pessoas no país e causaram mais de R$ 12 bilhões em prejuízos. De janeiro a outubro de 2024, o Inmet já registrou 33 vendavais.

Por Jornal Nacional 

 

No Brasil, ventos cada vez mais fortes e frequentes estão provocando um prejuízo bilionário.

O teto de um shopping foi pelos ares em São Paulo. Uma ameixeira tombou em Minas Gerais. No Rio Grande do Sul, uma ventania atingiu 51 municípios. Tudo isso no mês de outubro. 

 

Desde 2013, os vendavais afetaram 10 milhões de pessoas no Brasil e causaram mais de R$ 12 bilhões em prejuízos.

"Mil e quinhentos municípios no Brasil ainda não têm uma Defesa Civil organizada. Se houver prevenção, a gente praticamente elimina, no mínimo, 70% a 80% dos óbitos. Os danos materiais também se reduziriam muito”, afirma Paulo Ziulkoski, presidente da Confederação Nacional dos Municípios.

 

 São considerados vendavais ventos com mais de 80 km/h. A medição é feita pelo Inmet desde 2002. Até 2007, os registros desses fenômenos eram raros, não chegavam a dez por ano. A partir daí, passaram a ser feitos com mais frequência: 31 em 2012 e em 2015; 36 em 2017. Em 2023, foram 51. E, de janeiro a outubro de 2024, o Inmet já registrou 33 vendavais - mais da metade deles com ventos acima de 100 km/h. 

 Uma escala, criada no século XIX e usada mundialmente até hoje, mostra o poder destrutivo dos vendavais. Ela começa com ventos fracos que deslocam a fumaça, movimentam folhas de árvores e bandeiras, balançam galhos e provocam danos em pequenas construções a partir dos 75 km/h. Quando passam dos 80 km/h, podem arrancar árvores inteiras. E, dos 100 km/h, provocam estragos generalizados. Com mais de 118 km/h, são considerados furacões. 

 

O professor Ricardo de Camargo, da USP, diz que, além das chuvas e das secas, os vendavais serão mais frequentes.

"É o que a gente já adiantava bastante nesse cenário de aquecimento global e de mudanças climáticas. Mas essas ocorrências de eventos extremos de ventania, a gente tem que se preparar”, afirma Ricardo de Camargo, professor de Meteorologia IAG/USP.

 

No túnel de vento do Instituto de Pesquisas Tecnológicas de São Paulo é possível reproduzir o efeito de um vendaval sobre uma construção e calcular a resistência que ela precisa ter para evitar prejuízos ou, pior, acidentes. Um teste mostra que o primeiro impacto de um vendaval é no telhado de uma construção. Mas existem medidas para aumentar a resistência.

 

"Vento muito forte incidindo sobre uma casa tem, tanto a partir da incidência, ele vai descer um pouco e também vai subir. Se tem o forro primeiro, ele pode bater no forro, desviar e, pode ser que, ele arranque o forro. Mas é um problema menor. Agora, se não tem o forro, se está direto nas telhas, quando ele subir, ele vai arrancar telha. Procure, então, vedar as frestas entre o telhado e a alvenaria. Tente manter tudo fechado, e se tiver frestas na janela, procure também colocar algum elemento de vedação”, afirma Gilder Nader, pesquisador do IPT - Instituto de Pesquisas Tecnológicas.

 

 

Climate Change Is Making Disasters Deadlier. Here’s How Much. More than half a million people were killed in 10 disasters that climate change worsened, according to a new report.

 

 

Rescue workers escorted a stranded couple to safety from their damaged home after heavy flooding in Letur, Spain, on Wednesday. In some areas of the country, a month’s worth of rain fell in less than a day.Credit...Susana Vera/Reuters

 

 

By Austyn Gaffney

 

Two weeks before world leaders meet to debate the climate crisis, a report released on Thursday shows the 10 deadliest extreme weather events in the past two decades were made worse by burning fossil fuels.

More than half a million people around the world were killed in those disasters since 2004.

“Many people now understand that climate change is already making life more dangerous,” said Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at Imperial College London and co-founder of World Weather Attribution, the group that published the report. “What did not work yet is turning knowledge into action on a large-enough scale.”

Even with the abundance of evidence on how a warming world is endangering human life, the world keeps burning fossil fuels: 2023, the hottest year on record, also set a record for greenhouse gas emissions.

The stakes are high for how the world will respond in November, with a pivotal U.S. election and an annual climate summit of world leaders, known as COP29, hosted in Azerbaijan. Developing countries, hit hard by climate disasters, are pressing for rich countries to make good on their pledges to curb emissions and fund climate adaptation projects.

 

“The U.S. and really the world face a very sharp fork in the road,” said Michael Gerrard, a professor of environmental law at Columbia Law School.

Next week, the United States, the highest per-capita emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world, will vote on its climate future. A Kamala Harris presidency could continue the work of the Biden administration in transitioning to renewable energy, largely through tax credits and increased American manufacturing on clean energy technologies.

 

Portraits of the dead hung on what was left of a home in Myasein Kan, a village in Myanmar, after Cyclone Nargis in 2008. The storm killed more than 138,000 people.Credit...Getty Images

 

 

If returned to office, Donald J. Trump could roll back environmental regulations, including those that limit greenhouse gases, and continue development of fossil fuels. He could also pull out of international agreements to fight climate change, as he did in his first term as president.

“It will be extremely difficult for the world to take on the climate crisis if Trump is president of the United States,” said Lena Moffitt, executive director for Evergreen Action, a climate nonprofit.

 

A week after the Election Day, the world’s leaders will meet at COP29. In Azerbaijan, a tiny petrostate on the borders of Russia and Iran they will seek to agree on how to lower global emissions fast enough that temperatures remain below 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels.

But the planet has already warmed 1.3 degrees Celsius, or 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit, since rich countries began burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas on an enormous scale. The world may now be on track to reach 3 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century, according to Dr. Otto and other climate scientists.

Last year, summit attendees pledged to transition away from fossil fuels, but the pact came with heavy caveats. Dr. Otto said she hoped this year’s conference would create a stricter timeline for that transition that could hold countries accountable.

The group of nations also set up a damages fund to help poorer countries with historically low emissions adapt to climate change. The fund, which currently has about $700 million pledged, is dwarfed by the hundreds of billions of dollars in climate-related damages developing countries may incur by 2030.

 Health workers tending to a person who fainted during a heat wave at the Acropolis of Greece last year.Credit...Milos Bicanski/Getty Images

“It’s a ridiculously and insultingly low sum of money to help the most vulnerable countries with dealing with the losses and damages,” Dr. Otto said. “That needs to be orders of magnitude bigger.”

The new study showed that death tolls from extreme weather events are often higher in poor countries. Researchers culled the list of weather episodes from the International Disaster Database, and included three tropical cyclones, four heat waves, two floods and a drought. They noted that the high death toll was “a major underestimate,” with potentially millions of unreported heat-related deaths not included.

Europe faced well-documented heat waves in 2015, 2022 and 2023 that led to almost 94,000 deaths. Another report released this week shows that during a 2022 heat wave in Europe that caused 68,000 deaths, more than half of those deaths could be traced back to human-induced climate change.

But poor countries suffered more in extreme weather. In Somalia, a 2011 drought made worse by rising temperatures that sucked water vapor from plants led to 258,000 deaths; in Myanmar, Cyclone Nargis formed in 2008 over warmer seas and most likely had higher wind speeds and more intense precipitation as a result of climate change. It killed more than 138,000 people.

Climate attribution studies are now 20 years old, and more than 500 have been published by researchers. The first was published in 2004, according to World Weather Attribution; it showed that the likelihood of Europe’s 2003 summer, the hottest the continent had seen since 1500, was doubled by climate change.

To make such assessments, scientists pair weather observations with climate models and work with local experts and meteorological agencies.

 

Burying a 4-year-old who died in a refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya, during the famine that struck Kenya and Somalia in 2011.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

 

Attribution studies can help raise awareness of climate change, but researchers have a hard time finding funding, said Michael Wehner, a senior scientist in applied mathematics at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

“We have the technology and we have the methodology and the machines, the data and the experts,” Dr. Wehner said. “But they’ve got to be paid to do this, and they’re not.”

In its report, World Weather Attribution highlighted the need for protecting vulnerable people, improving early warning systems, and strengthening infrastructure like homes from flooding events, before the world reaches its limit for resilience.

But some events are now so extreme, experts warned, that governments could reach the limits of adaptation, underscoring the need to try to curb global warming as quickly as possible.

“Climate change has already made life incredibly hard and really dangerous, and we’re only at 1.3 degrees of warming,” said Joyce Kimutai, a researcher at Imperial College London. “We’re likely to see an escalation of impacts and the continual suffering of vulnerable people.”

Austyn Gaffney is a reporter covering climate and a member of the 2024-25 Times Fellowship class, a program for journalists early in their careers. More about Austyn Gaffney

 

‘We were trapped like rats’: Spain’s floods bring devastation and despair

 

Pedestrians look at piled-up cars in Sedavi, south of Valencia city, after deadly floods. Photograph: José Jordan/AFP/Getty Images

 Residents describe impact of floods and downpours – with some places hit with a year’s worth of rain in just eight hours

The gratitude that greeted Tuesday’s dawn downpours was short-lived in Utiel. When the longed-for rains finally reached the town in the drought-stricken eastern Spanish region of Valencia, they were merciless in their abundance.

“People were very happy at first because they’d been praying for rain as their lands needed water,” said Remedios, who owns a bar in Utiel. “But by 12 o’clock, this storm had really hit and we were all pretty terrified.”

Trapped in the bar, she and a handful of her customers could only sit and watch as Spain’s worst flooding in almost 30 years caused the Magro River to overflow its banks, trapping some residents in their homes and sending cars and rubbish bins surging through the streets on muddy flood waters.

Damaged cars lie amid debris along damaged rail lines in the flood-hit city of Valencia. Photograph: Manuel Bruque/EPA

 

“The rising waters brought mud and stones with them and they were so strong that they broke the surface of the road,” said Remedios, who gave only her first name.

“The tunnel that leads into the town was half-full of mud, trees were down and there were cars and rubbish containers rolling down the streets. My outside terrace has been destroyed – the chairs and shades were all swept away. It’s just a disaster.”

By Wednesday afternoon, the death toll in Valencia and the neighbouring regions of Castilla-La Mancha and Andalucía stood at 95 . Utiel’s mayor, Ricardo Gabaldón, told Las Provincias newspaper that some of the town’s residents had not survived the floods, but was unable to provide an exact number.

Hours earlier, Gabaldón had told Spain’s national broadcaster, RTVE, that Tuesday had been the worst day of his life. “We were trapped like rats,” he said. “Cars and rubbish containers were flowing down the streets. The water was rising to 3 metres.”

 People in the town fear some of the dead may have been older people who were unable to escape the flood waters. Remedios said: “Anyone who could get to higher ground did, but there were some old people who couldn’t even open their front doors and they were trapped there inside their own houses.”

 

Residents of La Torre, on the outskirts of Valencia city, were confronted by similar scenes on Wednesday morning.

“The neighbourhood is destroyed, all the cars are on top of each other, it’s literally smashed up,” Christian Viena, a bar-owner in the area, told the Associated Press by phone. “Everything’s a total wreck, everything is ready to be thrown away. The mud is almost 30cm deep.”

A man carries a dog in Letur, Albacete province, after flash floods hit the region. Photograph: Mateo Villalba Sanchez/Getty Images

Spain’s meteorological office, Aemet, said that more than 300 litres of rain per square metre (30cm) had fallen in the area between Utiel and the town of Chiva, 20 miles (50km) away, on Tuesday. In Chiva, it noted, almost an entire year’s worth of rain had fallen in just eight hours.

The ferocious rains have come as Spain continues to experience a punishing drought. Last year, the government approved an unprecedented €2.2bn (£1.9bn) plan to help farmers and consumers cope with the enduring lack of rain amid warnings that the climate would only get worse, and more unpredictable, in the future.

“Spain is a country that is used to periods of drought but there’s no doubt that, as a consequence of the climate change we’re experiencing, we’re seeing far more frequent and intense events and phenomena,” the environment minister, Teresa Ribera, said.

As Wednesday wore on, a distressing picture of the human and economic damage began to emerge. Spain declared three days of national mourning.

 

The prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said the entire country felt the pain of those who had lost their loved ones, and urged people to take every possible precaution as the torrential rains moved to the north-east of the country.

The defence minister, Margarita Robles, said 1,000 members of the military emergencies unit had been deployed to help regional emergency services. In a sign that more bodies could be trapped in the mud and in houses, she also offered mobile morgues.

One man used a phone call to RTVE to plead for any news of his son, Leonardo Enrique Rivera, who had gone missing in his Fiat van after going to work as a delivery driver in the Valencian town of Riba-roja on Tuesday.

A man picks his way through debris in Letur. Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters
 

“I haven’t heard from him since 6.55 yesterday,” said Leonardo Enrique. “It was raining heavily and then I got a message saying the van was flooding and that he’d been hit by another vehicle. That was the last I heard.”

Esther Gómez, a town councillor in Riba-roja, said workers had been stuck overnight in an industrial estate “without a chance of rescuing them” as streams overflowed. “It had been a long time since this happened and we’re scared,” she told Agence France-Presse.

As the search for the dead continued, experts warned that the torrential rains and subsequent floods were further proof of the realities of the climate emergency.

“No doubt about it, these explosive downpours were intensified by climate change,” said Dr Friederike Otto, leader of world weather attribution at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London.

“With every fraction of a degree of fossil fuel warming, the atmosphere can hold more moisture, leading to heavier bursts of rainfall. These deadly floods are yet another reminder of how dangerous climate change has already become at just 1.3C of warming. But last week the UN warned that we are on track to experience up to 3.1C of warming by the end of the century.”

There were similar, if differently expressed, sentiments in Utiel on Wednesday. “There was one guy here with me yesterday who’s 73, and he said he’d never seen anything like this in all his years,” said Remedios. “Never.”

 

Tempestades na Espanha deixam mais de 62 mortos

 

Região de Málaga também foi atingida

 

Autoridades da Espanha confirmaram nesta quarta-feira (30/01) que ao menos 62 pessoas morreram e várias estão desaparecidas após as enchentes  que atingiram a província de Valência. As inundações arrastaram carros, transformaram ruas de vilarejos em rios e interromperam o tráfego em linhas ferroviárias e rodovias.

Nesta terça-feira, chuvas torrenciais e inundações causaram estragos em várias partes do país, principalmente em uma ampla área do sul e do leste. Os maiores impactos foram registrados nas regiões costeiras mediterrâneas da Andaluzia, Múrcia e Valência.

Além das fortes chuvas, houve também queda de granizo e fortes rajadas de vento, segundo com o serviço meteorológico nacional Aemet. A agência previu que as tempestades devem continuar até esta quinta-feira

A força da água arrastou veículos e destroços pelas ruas de várias localidades. A polícia e os serviços de resgate usaram helicópteros para retirar pessoas de casas e carros. O governo da região de Valência pediu aos moradores que se desloquem para terrenos mais altos.

Inundações na Espanha transformaram ruas de vilarejos em rios e interromperam o tráfego em linhas ferroviárias e rodoviasFoto: JOSE JORDAN/AFP/Getty Images

 
 O transporte aéreo e ferroviário também foi afetado. Um trem de alta velocidade com quase 291 pessoas a bordo descarrilou perto de Málaga devido a um deslizamento de terra. A empresa ferroviária estatal Renfe informou que o acidente, porém, não deixou feridos.

 

Governo cria comitê de crise

O serviço de trens de alta velocidade e outras linhas de passageiros entre Valência e Madri foi interrompido. Aulas tiveram de ser canceladas em várias escolas e universidades. Mais de mil membros dos serviços de emergências da Espanha foram enviados para as áreas atingidas.

A tempestade já havia atingido Mallorca e outras Ilhas Baleares na segunda-feira, onde um alerta amarelo de tempestade ainda está em vigor para algumas áreas.

O governo da Espanha criou um comitê de crise para coordenar os esforços de resgate, que será presidido pelo primeiro-ministro, Pedro Sánchez.

Carros foram arrastados pela força das águas

 

A tempestade deve se mover para nordeste do país nesta quarta-feira, enquanto um alerta de clima severo permanece em vigor para uma grande parte da Espanha.

Tempestades após fortes secas

As tempestades que atingem a Espanha ocorrem após uma seca severa. Cientistas afirmam que o aumento dos episódios de clima extremo provavelmente está associado às mudanças climáticas. À medida que as temperaturas globais aumentam, o ar mais quente retém mais umidade, o que intensifica os níveis de precipitação.

Atividades humanas, como desenvolvimento urbano, desmatamento e infraestruturas inadequadas, também contribuem significativamente para os riscos de inundações.

rc/cn (AP, DPA, EFE)

 

Mount Fuji snowless for longest time on record after sweltering Japan summer

 

Mount Fuji on 10 August 2024. The Japanese mountain has experienced the longest time on record without snow. Photograph: Newscom/Alamy

 

 As of 29 October, the iconic mountain was still without snow, marking the longest period since records began 130 years ago.

 

Japan’s Mount Fuji remained snowless on Tuesday, marking the latest date that its slopes have been bare since records began 130 years ago, the country’s weather agency said.

The volcano’s snowcap begins forming on 2 October on average, and last year snow was first detected there on 5 October.

 

But because of warm weather, this year no snowfall had yet been observed on Japan’s highest mountain, said Yutaka Katsuta, a forecaster at Kofu Local Meteorological Office.

 

That marked the latest date since comparative data became available in 1894, he said, beating the previous record of 26 October – which had been recorded twice, in 1955 and 2016.

“Temperatures were high this summer, and these high temperatures continued into September, deterring cold air” which brings snow, Katsuta told the AFP news agency.

He said climate change might have a degree of impact on the delay in the snowcap’s formation.

The summit of Mt Fuji in Japan. Photograph: Newscom/Alamy

 

Japan’s summer this year was the joint hottest on record – equalling the level seen in 2023 – as extreme heatwaves fuelled by climate change engulfed many parts of the globe.

Mount Fuji is covered in snow for most of the year, but during the July-September hiking season more than 220,000 visitors trudge up its steep, rocky slopes. Many climb through the night to see the sunrise from the 3,776-metre summit.

Fewer climbers tackled Mount Fuji this year, however, after Japanese authorities introduced an entry fee and a daily cap on numbers to fight overtourism.

The symmetrical mountain has been immortalised in countless artworks, including Hokusai’s “Great Wave”.

It last erupted about 300 years ago.

 

Climate crisis caused half of European heat deaths in 2022, says study

 

People cooling down in the fountains of the Trocadero gardens in Paris as Europe experienced an unusually extreme heatwave in 2022. Photograph: Christophe Ena/AP

 Researchers found 38,000 fewer people – 10 times number of murders – would have died if atmosphere was not clogged with greenhouse pollutants

 

Climate breakdown caused more than half of the 68,000 heat deaths during the scorching European summer of 2022, a study has found.

Researchers from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) found 38,000 fewer people would have died from heat if humans had not clogged the atmosphere with pollutants that act like a greenhouse and bake the planet. The death toll is about 10 times greater than the number of people murdered in Europe that year.

“Many see climate change as a future concern,” said the lead author, Thessa Beck. “Yet our findings underscore that it is already a pressing issue.”

The warm weather killed more women than men, more southern Europeans than northern Europeans, and more older people than younger people. Scientists already knew carbon pollution had made the heatwaves hotter but did not know how much it had driven up the death toll.

 

They found 56% of the heat-related deaths could have been avoided if the world had not been warmed by burning fossil fuels and the destruction of nature. The share varied between 44% and 54% in the six years prior.

Even small increases in temperatures can have devastating impacts on public health, said Emily Theokritoff, a researcher at Imperial College London who was not involved in the study. “This result makes sense – heat-related death increases rapidly as temperatures push past the limits people are acclimatised to.”

 

Europe is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet but doctors warn its hospitals are not prepared to deal with the consequences. The rise in temperatures forces more people to endure searing summer heat that pushes their bodies into overdrive even as it cuts exposure to chilling winter cold that leaves them too weak to fight off illness.

Scientists project the lives lost to hotter summers in Europe will outstrip those saved by cooler winters if the planet heats more than 2C above preindustrial levels. Last week, the UN environment programme warned the world is on track to heat by 3C by the end of the century.

The dangers of extreme heat are even greater in Africa, Asia, and South America, but a lack of data had limited studies on how it affects human health, said Beck.“A common misconception is that only extreme temperatures pose a serious risk,” she said. “However, our study, along with previous research, shows that even moderate heat can lead to heat-related deaths, particularly among more vulnerable populations.”

 

Scientists had previously used heat and health data for 35 European countries to estimate how many more people die as a result of hot weather. In the new study, they ran the model with temperatures for a hypothetical world in which humans had not heated the planet.

They found climate change was behind 22,501 heat deaths in women and 14,026 heat deaths in men.

Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, a researcher at Imperial College London, who was not involved in the study, said the authors may have overestimated the effect of heat on mortality because they did not account for how people had adapted.

He said: “Previous studies have reported a decrease in heat-mortality impact over time, due to factors including infrastructural changes and improved health care.”

To stay safe in the heat, doctors recommend drinking water, staying indoors during the hottest parts of the day and looking after older neighbours and relatives who live alone. Governments can save lives by creating action plans for hot weather, designing cities with more green space and less concrete, and cutting pollution.

“Heat can be very dangerous for the heart, especially for older people,” said Beck.