Extreme heat for US and Russia

• Autores: Andy Coghlan
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3170, 2018, pág. 12
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Russia already has a heatwave problem. Its worst for 40 years struck in summer 2010. Temperatures passed 40°C, compared with a seasonal average of 23°C, and the heatwave lasted all of July and into mid-August. It resulted in the deaths of 55,000 people in western Russia--14,000 in Moscow alone--and caused economic losses of $15 billion, not least through the loss of 9 million hectares of crops. Even worse is to come, says Gerard van der Schrier at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute. He and his colleagues modeled the conditions that led to the heatwave, including a huge anticyclone that sat over Russia, locked in place because the usual jet stream of airflow has stalled. The team looked at how those same conditions would be affected by warmer temperatures. If similar heatwaves occur again later this century, the team found that temperatures in Russia could be as much as 8.4°C higher than they were in 2010.