Worse Scorching Summers Loom If Global Warming Continues Unchecked

With scorching weather broiling the Northern Hemisphere this summer and setting off forest fires in the Arctic region, environment experts link the phenomenon to greenhouse gas emissions and warn of worse if global warming is not checked. Asia, Europe, North America and North Africa have recorded historically high temperatures while even parts of the Arctic have seen the mercury jump above 30 degrees Celsius, Xinhua reported.

The World Meteorological Organization said last month that extreme weather, like high temperatures and drought, has been witnessed in multiple places, intensifying wildfire disasters in the Northern Hemisphere and posing a danger to human health, agriculture and the ecosystem.

"2018 is shaping up to be one of the hottest years on record, with new temperature records in many countries," WMO Deputy Secretary-General Elena Manaenkova said. The soaring temperatures "are consistent with what we expect as a result of climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions," she said.

Bengt Lindstrom, a meteorologist at Swedish national weather agency SMHI, called the long and persistently high temperature worldwide this summer worrisome.

"A day or two over 30 degrees C is not remarkable, but it has been incredibly persistent, that's what's sensational," Lindstrom told Swedish public broadcaster SVT. The high temperature and wildfires are closely linked to global warming, said Yifang Zhu, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. The wildfires in western United States were predictable against the backdrop of the ongoing climate change, Zhu said.

If the world fails to take effective measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, there will be more and more such incidents and the situation will worsen, she added.