TOKYO: The national weather agency said that Japan experienced its warmest spring on record this year, as greenhouse gasses and El Nino send temperatures soaring worldwide.
According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, temperatures in March, April, and May were 1.59 degrees Celsius (34.9 Fahrenheit) higher than usual.
As a result, it was the warmest spring since the organisation began recording similar data in 1898.
Such record-level temperatures have become increasingly frequent due to global warming, and this trend is anticipated to continue as global warming intensifies.
According to the EPA, the average sea surface temperatures in the months in question were tied for the third-highest since 1982 in the waters surrounding Japan.
The United Nations predicted last month that the five-year period between 2023 and 2027 will be the hottest on record.
The potential that the meteorological phenomena El Nino may emerge in the upcoming months and cause greater global temperatures is one reason for this.
The most recent occurrence of El Nino, a naturally occurring climatic trend that is often accompanied with increasing heat worldwide, drought in some regions, and heavy precipitation in others, was in 2018–19.
According to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), there is also a two-thirds possibility that at least one of the following five years would see global temperatures exceed the more challenging goal outlined in the Paris Agreements on mitigating climate change.
Countries agreed to limit global warming to “well below” two degrees Celsius over normal levels estimated between 1850 and 1900 — and 1.5C if possible — as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The average worldwide temperature in 2022 was 1.15C higher than it was between 1850 and 1900.
As climate change exacerbates bad weather, much of South and Southeast Asia has seen spring heatwaves.
Around the area, records are breaking, and on Monday Shanghai had its warmest May day in more than 100 years, breaking the previous record by one full degree.
Because a warmer atmosphere stores more water, scientists claim that climate change is increasing the probability of heavy rain in Japan and worldwide.
A disastrous landslip that killed 27 people in the central tourist town of Atami in 2021 was caused by heavy rain.
Additionally, during the nation’s yearly rainy season in 2018, landslides and floods in western Japan claimed the lives of over 200 people.
The G7, which this year promised to speed up the phase-out of fossil fuels that warm the globe, is currently being headed by Japan.
The top economies, however, were unable to agree on any new dates for phasing out dirty energy sources like coal. AFP
