A “global SOS” was launched at the Pacific Islands Forum Summit on Tuesday, August 27. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is relying on new research that confirms a faster rise in sea levels in this region compared to the global average: plus 15 cm in 30 years compared to just over 9 cm on average in the rest of the world. The cause: global warming in the region and ocean currents. The question of the future of these territories is therefore becoming increasingly pressing.
Overall, the new temperature records set this summer are evidence of continued global warming. The summer of 2024 left its mark: severe heatwaves in China and Mexico, wildfires in Greece, drought in Italy and Spain, etc. Europe experienced its second hottest July on record. And on August 15, the median surface temperature in the Mediterranean reached a record high of 28.9 degrees.
Weather is only a “sequence” of the climate
However, part of France escaped this scorching summer a little. The north and west of France, as well as Germany and the British Isles, were relatively spared from overheating. While usually 15% of the 2,000 Météo France measuring stations reach 40 degrees during the summer, this year only 2% reached this threshold, reports Christine Berne, climatologist at Météo France. This is explained by the atypical position of an anticyclone over Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean for a good part of the summer, which did not allow the heat to settle in the northwest of the country. But the south of France, on the other hand, was hot.
Overall, temperatures were higher in August than in July. This reminds us that we should not confuse weather and climate, and to use a metaphor used by climatologist Christophe Cassou, a member of the IPCC, if we compare with cinema, the climate is the scenario, the weather, only a sequence. We experienced a less hot sequence in Northern Europe this summer than our southern European neighbors, but the scenario of the film remains the same: that of global warming. Scientists from the Copernicus observation service have already announced that 2024 will probably be the hottest year ever recorded on Earth.
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