During the early days of this August, forest fires consumed nearly 250,000 acres along the Turkish coasts on the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea, in the worst disaster in decades. You could even see smoke, from the intensity of the fires, in cities located on A distance of tens of kilometers.
It has caused about a dozen deaths so far, hundreds of injuries, and disruption to tourism.
This is not the first time, during the past few years, that a country has faced unprecedented fires at enormous rates. The most famous examples were undoubtedly the California 2 fires in 2018, which consumed nearly two million acres, a year later the Amazon 3 fires that consumed almost the same area, while The Australian 4 bushfires in the same year consumed about 12 million acres, making it the center of global news attention for weeks.
Are all these fires related to climate change?
It is undoubtedly an important question, and it is certainly on your mind and the minds of millions with you around the world, but it is not only about forest fires, during the past few weeks, unprecedented floods hit China, Germany and Belgium, in China alone, more than 300 people died, to Besides, the whole world, especially our Arab region, is exposed to heat waves that are undoubtedly one of the most violent in the history of measurement. We were not used to this before, and therefore we resort to asking: "What is happening here?!".
Smoke rises from the Amazon rainforest fires - Brazil
Well, there are no definite answers, of course, we cannot easily find a direct causal link between specific events and climate change, but we can enumerate an important set of points that support this hypothesis. European countries during the past few weeks, as temperatures in most countries exceeded the barrier of forty degrees Celsius, and a quick look at the average temperatures in European lands in general during the past years, you will find that the last decade was the hottest due to climate change, and with the heat comes drought, of course.
With drought, trees store less water, grow slowly and release less water vapor to the atmosphere, which leads to more dry leaves falling out and trees dying quickly, which provides a suitable environment for the spread of fires, especially since fires spread more in the absence of steam. The water in the surrounding atmosphere, which basically works to extinguish it if it starts, for this reason - and given that the effects of climate change are increasing in an unprecedented way - there are expectations that the rates of forest fires will increase in the coming decades.
According to a research paper6 published one year ago in the highly-acclaimed journal Nature, the Amazon rainforest fires, for example, are not a natural event but a union of two components;
The first is the severe drought, which is increasing day by day due to climate change, and the second is the human activities that negatively affect the nature of those forests.
Now let's consider the California wildfires in 2018. Since the 1980s, the size and intensity of the fires ravaging the US state have gone up unceasingly. Fifteen of the twenty largest wildfires in California history have occurred since the year 2000. Since the 1970s, the area of burned area in the country has increased. The state fivefold, in contrast, the average temperature in the state during the same period increased significantly.
The same applies to other climatic phenomena. In Europe, for example, a study published last June 8 believes that climate change is likely to lead to an increase in the number of large, slow-moving storms, which can last for a long time in one region, and lead to As a consequence, floods of the kind that were seen in Germany and Belgium occurred during the last month.
In addition, as the temperature increases in the atmosphere, it also retains more moisture, which means more rain. Looking into the future, it is expected that heavy rainfall events will increase by 50%9 as the temperature continues to rise during the current century. Of course, heavy rains do not automatically lead to floods, but they do increase the likelihood of them, but even moderate amounts of rain can cause serious damage in urban areas.
Climate change is reshaping the rain system in the whole world, so you will find that some areas will receive extreme amounts of rain in the form of severe rain waves, and you may think - at first glance - that this may be beneficial for the areas in which it occurs, but it is not so, let's at that point Consider Yemen, which, due to its geographical location, may be exposed to more rain as a result of the global average temperature rise.
But these extremes of rain cause severe storms, torrential rains and floods10, for example: in 2008, these phenomena caused losses estimated at $2 billion, equivalent to about 6% of the country’s GDP at the time.
All this and we have not yet talked about the effects of severe droughts, due to global warming, on the soil as well, as drought reduces the ability of the land to bear and absorb water, which may cause it to run more quickly and the intensity of the flood will rise.
As for heat waves, they follow the same pattern. To understand the idea, let's consider a study published about two years ago in 11 Science Advances, linking a rapid rise of 0.5 degrees Celsius in average temperatures in India during the period 1960-2009 with a high Its heat wave hit rates are 25-50% compared to the 25 years prior to that period.
For the Arab world, unfortunately, this is what is actually happening, and you can review a previous report by the author entitled: “Do you feel that the weather is on fire this week? This is only the beginning”12 for more detail.
Sand storm hit Syria 2015
Imagine the ecological and climate system as a huge network tied very carefully by wires or thin rubber strings, which in turn are connected with higher strings with our daily lives as humans. Until September 2015, when a severe sandstorm hit the Middle East, which everyone described as exceptional, the storm caused deaths and stopped public life in a number of areas.
Meanwhile, a research team from Princeton University 13 studied that storm, to reveal that climate change, along with other factors, was a major cause of this harsh climatic surprise, as droughts that included several regions in the Arab world - especially since the summer of this year was hot Unprecedentedly - it increased the amount of dust available and caused more dust to be expelled into the atmosphere.
No wonder, then, that the past 15 years have witnessed a marked increase in sandstorm rates in the Middle East.
In 2018, Egypt bought rice from the Black Sea region and Europe at the highest price in three years (235.65 dollars per ton), and this is not the first time, during the past twenty years, the prices of grains rose clearly, and the reason is the drought that hits the areas that sell rice, What reduces productivity, increases demand, and increases price.
In order to be nourished, in the past, man only needed himself and his family, they grow food or search for it on trees, but now we do not depend for our food on our own surroundings, but on other countries that may be exposed to the problems of climate change and affect our future and our food and national security.
Not only that, but the major cities of the world have become dependent on daily production and import systems14 (Just In Time) that require very precise prior planning so that no problems occur. Therefore, the high frequency of climatic problems - such as floods or heat waves - in a country like Bangladesh For a day or two, it may affect those supply systems.
Remember what we emphasized a little while ago: the whole world is one network, as soon as one of its parts is affected, the other is affected, at all levels, socially, politically and economically, you just do not notice that.
A poor rhinoceros dies in Kenya, the temperature rises, and a construction worker falls unconscious in a Syrian village. A group of Iraqi teenagers flee the village to the city of Basra because drought has fallen on the rivers and ruined their lives. A seventy-year-old man suffocates in a Turkish city because of the heavy smoke, people sell In California, their homes are cheaper because the water level is rising, people in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, are buying food at a higher price than usual because the climate affects the amount of agricultural production, a fruit shelf is empty in a Gulf city because the import movement has been suspended for days due to a new unprecedented storm, everything Connected, all of us human beings are faced with something completely new, getting to know it day in and day out with these extraordinary events and asking "what's going on here?"
We are astonished and amazed, it is climate change and it has come.
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Sources:
Turkey fires: eight dead and fires devour forests and tourist resorts
2018 Fire Season
?When will the Amazon hit a tipping point
2019-2020 Australian Bushfires
Brutal heatwave scorches southern Europe as continent's summer of extreme weather rages on
21st Century drought-related fires counteract the decline of Amazon deforestation carbon emissions
Climate change is contributing to California's fires
Quasi-Stationary Intense Rainstorms Spread Across Europe Under Climate Change
Flooding and Climate Change: Everything You Need to Know
Climate change and floods in Yemen
Increasing probability of mortality during Indian heat waves
Do you feel like the weather is on fire this week?
This is just the beginning
Giant Middle East dust storm caused by a changing climate, not human conflict
How Climate Change is Messing with Your Supply Chain