Fires, floods, heatwaves and droughts. The deadly weather that has unfolded in recent weeks has left climate scientists “shocked” and concerned that extreme events are arriving even faster than models predicted.
In southern Oregon, a fire over an area 25 times the size of Manhattan has raged for weeks, aided by a record-shattering heatwave. In China, floods left 51 dead after a year’s worth of rain fell in a single day in the central city of Zhengzhou causing more than $10bn in damages.
And in Russia, a state of emergency has been declared in Yakutia in the Far East, where authorities are creating artificial rain by seeding clouds with silver iodine in an attempt to put out more than 200 fires.