Severe heat waves hit several states ‘unusually early’

Severe heat waves have begun “unusually early” in the season across Eastern and Western India with temperatures touching 40 degrees in some regions, reported HT.  The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said last year such conditions appeared only in early April. Areas under the hot spell include Vidarbha, Madhya Maharashtra, Odisha, Saurashtra, Kutch, Telangana, and Rayalaseema, with Jharsuguda in Odisha recording the country’s highest temperature at 41.8°C on Friday. On Saturday, the highest temperature across the country was recorded at Boudh in Odisha at 42.5°C, the report stated.

Heatwave conditions are also expected over Jharkhand, Gangetic West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Vidarbha, and north Telangana on March 16, and North Interior Karnataka on March 18 and 19, the report said. Delhi recorded its warmest February night in 74 years last month (minimum temperatures at  19.5°C was seven degrees above normal). The hot conditions follow what was already the warmest February in India since record-keeping began in 1901. This aligns with global patterns, as February marked the 19th month in the last 20 in which global average surface air temperatures exceeded the critical 1.5-degree threshold, the newspaper report explained. 

Maximum temperatures are currently in the range of 40-42°C over many places in Vidarbha and at isolated locations across Madhya Maharashtra, Odisha, Saurashtra, Kutch, Telangana, and Rayalaseema. Temperatures between 38-40°C have been recorded over many places in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, and at a few places over Chhattisgarh, Coastal Andhra Pradesh, and Yanam.

World will breach 1.5°C by Sept 2029 at current rate, warns C3S study

The 1.5°C long-term global warming threshold will be breached by September 2029 if current warming trend continues, said the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) reported HT, adding that the new timeline (based on ERA5 dataset, a detailed global atmospheric record) is significantly sooner than the “early 2030s” projection. The report said that the ambient temperatures have already reached 1.38°C above the pre-industrial levels in February 2025.

At 1.5 degrees of warming, about 14% of Earth’s population would be exposed to severe heat waves at least once every five years, while at 2 degrees, this proportion would more than double to 37% of the population, the newspaper noted. C3S reported that for the first time in the ERA5 dataset surface temperatures reached or exceeded 1.5°C above the 1850-1900 average for 12 consecutive months.

The worrying projections come as the US under Donald Trump has decided to quit the Paris climate agreement and the biggest emitter also skipped the IPCC meeting in China last month, indicating its withdrawal from the organisation’s seventh assessment cycle currently underway.

The newspaper added that Trump has dismissed hundreds of researchers and meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a move scientists warn will significantly impact climate forecasting and research globally. The report warned that climate action has slowed. China, India, and the European Union, have yet to announce their 2035  nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and have missed the UNFCCC deadline of February 10.

Climate change more robust now, La Nina may not be effective in warmer future : Scientists

Climate change is growing stronger and more robust, and the cooling counter effects of La Nina may not be effective in a warmer future, climate scientists said, reported PTI. India’s meteorological authorities have predicted “above normal temperatures and intense, long heatwave spells” this year, the report said. The BBC reported that Indian summer “is early – and India’s economy is not ready for it”. The news portal added that, while the “scorching heat” is threatening winter staple crops and mango orchards, India’s agriculture minister “has dismissed concerns about poor yields and predicted that India will have a bumper wheat harvest” in 2025. 

8 miles of Amazon forest felled to build road for COP30 summit 

Eight miles of Amazon rainforest are being cleared, reported the Times after the BBC broke the story that a new  four-lane highway was cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém. The road is designed to ease traffic to the city of Belém ahead of hosting 50,000 people in November for COP30, with the state government touting the highway’s “sustainable” credentials, the BBC noted. It added that the road has been under discussion for more than a decade but “Now a host of infrastructure projects have been resurrected or approved to prepare the city for the COP summit.” The report said the Amazon plays a vital role in absorbing carbon for the world and providing biodiversity, and many say this deforestation contradicts the very purpose of a climate summit. 

Argentina declares three-day mourning as flood death toll rises to at least 16

Flash floods in the Argentinian city of Bahía Blanca last week killed 16 people and caused $400m in damages, prompting the government to declare three days of national mourning, Agence France-Presse reported. The report said the port city, in the south of Buenos Aires province, registered a year’s worth of rainfall in just a few hours. “Environment official Andrea Dufourg said this weekend that the extreme weather event ‘is a clear example of climate change,” said the report. The heatwave primed the atmosphere for heavy rainfall by creating high instability and raising humidity levels, The Guardian explained. 

Thousands of Australians without power as storm Alfred lashes Queensland

Several residents of Australia’s Queensland state were without power after the region was hit by a downgraded tropical cyclone, Alfred, Reuters reported, adding that some 316,540 people were without power in Queensland’s southeast, where the Gold Coast city was the worst-hit area with more than 112,000 without power. One man died in floodwater in northern New South Wales. 

The Australian treasury expects costs from Alfred to be about $759 million, shaving off a quarter of a percentage point from its gross domestic product in the March quarter. The Guardian reported that six cyclones swirled simultaneously in the southern hemisphere. Bianca, Garance and Honde churn across the Indian Ocean as Alfred, Rae and Seru spin through south-west Pacific which was “a far rarer occurrence … .for this many to occur within a single ocean basin.” the newspaper said. The Pacific Ocean has recorded six simultaneous named storms on just one occasion, in August 1974, while the Atlantic record is five, set in September 1971.

Climate change made South Sudan’s heatwave 10 times as likely, study finds

A “blistering February heatwave in South Sudan’s capital [that] caused dozens of students to collapse from heat stroke” was made “10 times as likely and 2C hotter” by human-caused climate change, said a new study by World Weather Attribution, NYT reported. The study added that it “used weather data, observations and climate models to get the results, which have not been peer reviewed, but are based on standardised methods”.

Record sea surface temperature rise in 2023–2024 ‘impossible’ without climate change

The “record-shattering” increase in sea surface temperatures in 2023-24 would have been “practically impossible” without climate change, a new study published in Nature revealed. Researchers estimate that the temperature rise – which was on average 0.25°C above the previous record in 2015-16 – would occur approximately once every 500 years under current rates of warming. Using climate model simulations, the findings suggest that the 2023-24 increase was “an extreme event after which surface ocean temperatures are expected to revert to the expected long-term warming trend”. Sea surface temperatures will likely return to previous levels by September this year, the researchers said.

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