BEIJING, July 17 (Reuters) - A remote township in China’s arid northwest endured temperatures of more than 52 Celsius (126 Fahrenheit) on Sunday, state media reported, setting a record for a country that was battling minus 50C weather just six months ago.
Temperatures at Sanbao township in Xinjiang’s Turpan Depression soared as high as 52.2C on Sunday, state-run Xinjiang Daily reported on Monday, with the record heat expected to persist at least another five days.
The Sunday temperature broke a previous record of 50.3C, measured in 2015 near Ayding in the depression, a vast basin of sand dunes and dried-up lakes more than 150 m (492 ft) below sea level.
Since April, countries across Asia have been hit by several rounds of record-breaking heat, stoking concerns about their ability to adapt to a rapidly changing climate. The target of keeping long-term global warming within 1.5C is moving out of reach, climate experts say.
Prolonged bouts of high temperatures in China have challenged power grids and crops, and concerns are mounting of a possible repeat of last year’s drought, the most severe in 60 years.
China is no stranger to dramatic swings in temperatures across the seasons but the swings are getting wider.
On Jan. 22, temperatures in Mohe, a city in northeastern Heilongjiang province, plunged to minus 53C, according to the local weather bureau, smashing China’s previous all-time low of minus 52.3C set in 1969.
Since then, the heaviest rains in a decade have hit central China, ravaging wheat fields in an area known as the country’s granary.
This week, the United States and China are looking to rekindle efforts to fight global warming, with U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry in Beijing holding talks with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua.
To the celciaphobic, that’s about half way to boiling, or 2 Popeye’s Kitchen’s worth of heat.
Jesus. We’re fucked.
Meanwhile, climate change deniers:
“it’s normal! The world does this every 50 years!”
“It was hotter last year”
“You watch, we will have a crazy cold winter this year. Global warming my ass!”
At least I’m not my sisters children. Poor bastards can barely talk. They’ve got a shit future ahead of them.
But we all gonna continue to live in denial that global warming doesn’t exist or isn’t significant yet. How bad is this going to be in 5-10 years time with the current rate at which humans are polluting the atmosphere lmao.
We’ll stop once a defective air-conditioning means heat death in minutes.
Why are you laughing? We are absolutely fucked unless we act.
Then go ‘act’ instead of complaining about other comments online
Which is…?
Because what can I do? The world runs on greed and until that changes I can’t see us overcoming this.
In my opinion we are already fucked. Just gotta ride it out till the end now.
With that mindset, yeah.
Because what can I do?
I try to focus on being happy and living my own life. These things are civilization level issues, and last 50 years have shown the civilization’s fundamental incapability to face the issue, let alone attempt to solve it at any meaningful scale.
IMO there is nothing wrong with attempting to minimize one’s own carbon footprint, but the futile attempt to push for more significant changes will just lead to disappointment
“We laugh so we do not cry.”
Ready to go to prison?
There’s significant investment in green alternatives. Particularly in China, but in many other places as well.
Wow it’s almost as if burning unimaginable amounts of coal, making an endless amount of plastic, producing an ungodly amount of metal and cement as well as having an industry that caters to other parts of the world while ignoring environmental scientists has some kind of an impact both locally and globally.
Wow. Something about chickens coming home to shit in the bed they make or something.
Don’t forget the livestock industry. They are a driving force behind climate change.
