BEIJING: Asia, Europe and the US baked under extreme heat on Monday as global temperatures surged toward alarming highs and Washington sought to reignite climate diplomacy with Beijing.
The US was scorched by record-setting heat levels in the West and South, hit by flood-triggering rain in the Northeast, and affected by wildfire smoke in the Midwest.
A heat dome parked over the western US pushed the temperature in the Death Valley of California desert to 128 Fahrenheit on Sunday, among the highest temperatures witnessed on Earth in the past ninety years, according to US media.
Phoenix hit 114F on Monday, matching a historic record of eighteen straight days over 110F with the predictions showing the record possibly to extend for at least another week.
The US heat wave coincided with soared temperatures elsewhere throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
A remote town of Sanbao in arid northwest China, recorded a national record of 52.2C. Wildfires in Europe raged ahead of a second heat wave in two weeks that was set to soar temperatures as high as 48C, while authorities in France and Italy issued temperature-related health warnings.
Even in Phoenix, accustomed to high levels of heat, the prolonged bout of extreme levels is testing people and worrying authorities. The international charitable body Salvation Army has opened eleven cooling centres and dispatched a mobile unit to deliver relief to homeless people who have issues in reaching the sites.
A spokesperson for the organization Scott Johnson said that extreme temperatures is the natural disaster of Arizona. So for the agency, this is a disaster response.
Heat’s havoc in US
The heat claimed 425 lives in the Phoenix-area’s Maricopa County in 2022, so the Salvation Army mobile unit was distributing urgently required cold water, sunscreen, hats, and hygiene kits to needy people.
US climate envoy John Kerry met his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua in Beijing, emphasizing for joint action to reduce methane emissions and coal-fired power.
Kerry said that in the next three days, they hope to initiate some big steps that would send a signal to the world about the serious purpose of US and China to address a common risk and challenge to all of humanity brought by humans themselves.
