The extreme heat that the northern hemisphere has suffered this summer threatens aggravate the problem of poor air quality in cities and create a “vicious circle” between climate change and pollution, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in its annual bulletin Global Atmosphere Watch.
“Heat waves worsen air quality and have very strong impacts on human health, ecosystems, agriculture and our daily lives,” warns WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas. “Climate change and air quality cannot be treated separately; We need to tackle both problems at the same time.
“The fires in Canada, the devastation in Hawaii and the damage in the Mediterranean region have contributed to dangerous air levels for millions of people, with wisps of smoke stretching across the Atlantic and even reaching the Arctic,” the Finnish meteorologist stressed. New York became in fact for several days in the most polluted city on the planet in julyahead of New Delhi, and due to the effect of the fires that have destroyed 4% of the forest area of the neighboring country.
“What we have witnessed in 2023 is even more extreme than what we already experienced in 2022,” Taalas said. “July has been hottest month ever recordedwith unprecedented intensity in various parts of the world that has continued through August.”
Climate change is contributing to the fact that heat waves -like the four experienced this summer in Spain- are “more frequent, more intense and longer lasting“, according to Friedrike Otto, a climatologist at the Grantham Institute and co-founder of the World Weather Attribution.