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Earth China Japan

Japan Swelters Through Hottest Summer While Parts of China Log Warmest August on Record (theguardian.com) 52

Japan has recorded its hottest summer on record after a sweltering three months marked by thousands of instances of "extreme heat," with meteorologists warning that unseasonably high temperatures will continue through the autumn. From a report: The average temperature in June, July and August was 1.76C higher than the average recorded between 1991 and 2020, the Japan meteorological agency said, according to Kyodo news agency. It was the hottest summer since comparable records were first kept in 1898 and tied the record set in 2023, the agency said. Japan has recorded 8,821 instances of "extreme heat" -- a temperature of 35C or higher -- so far this year, easily beating the previous record of 6,692 set in 2023, it added. The brutal heat was not confined to Japan. Swathes of China logged the hottest August on record, the weather service said.

The hot weather prompted delays to the start of the new school year in some Chinese cities. State media reported on Tuesday that some schools and universities in Jiangxi, Chongqing, and Sichuan provinces had pushed the return to school out to 9 September, citing high temperatures. China Daily said Chongqing authorities had extended school holidays for all kindergarten, primary and secondary schools, and at least a dozen colleges and universities, "to ensure the safety and health of teachers and students amid the extreme heat."

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Japan Swelters Through Hottest Summer While Parts of China Log Warmest August on Record

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  • Records (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Geoffrey.landis ( 926948 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2024 @10:46AM (#64758938) Homepage

    Any record breaking summer in a single region, of course, could be just statistical variation.

    But it is pretty disturbing that records high temperatures are being broken not merely in one place, but around the world.

    • Pull up the chart of % of the US that exceeded 90*F during the summer for the past 100 years.

      There are clear patterns and they don't match anybody's narrative.

      Smoothed data is useful.

      • Smoothed data is useful.

        Indeed. And the smoothed data shows the rise pretty clearly.

        But breaking records makes climate newsworthy. People love to hear about breaking records, even when the record breaking is within measurement errors .

        • Smoothed data is useful.

          Indeed. And the smoothed data shows the rise pretty clearly.

          But breaking records makes climate newsworthy. People love to hear about breaking records, even when the record breaking is within measurement errors .

          In a way, the count of "extreme" days is more important. If the average temperature increases by 2 degrees because the temperature at all times of all days is exactly 2 degrees higher, then no one would notice or care. It's the really hot days that matter.

          As others have pointed out, we've always heard about super hot days from many decades back. What is noteworthy isn't that cities have hot days but rather that there are so many cities all around the world that are having hot days.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        I'll never tire of posting this. https://www.explainxkcd.com/wi... [explainxkcd.com]

        This time with citations for all the data. So feel free to make your own graphic to disprove it. But I imagine your next excuse is to mumble something about bad data or the measurement being flawed.

        All the scientists are wrong yet nobody can disprove the data. Why?

        • Yeah, it's a powerful "comic". Your final paragraph needed a sarcasm tag? Not sure if the comment as a whole should be moderated Funny. I'm all for humor, but the story doesn't feel like a rich topic for humor.

          Rather the topic feels hot and sweaty and with too many warnings about possible heat strokes. I'm sure getting tired of them and the associated ambulance sirens. Apparently we are having a couple of cool days now, with a return to heat stroke conditions next weekend... The rain and coolness was a resu

        • No margin of error on the graph, statistics fail. You're not doing science, you're doing propaganda. (Admittedly, xkcd here is attempting propaganda, or trying to convince people. But it's not scientific).
      • Re:Records (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2024 @12:28PM (#64759222)
        A fact is not a "narrative." The continual and accelerating intensification of both extremes and average temperatures is simply observation. This is what happens when you dump infrared-trapping gases and increasing amounts of heat into a planetary atmosphere. You'd have to invoke some kind of magic or obfuscatory voodoo to deny it.
        • A fact is not a "narrative."

          An Inconvenient Truth was fact too, which turned out to be narrative, and in the end, not very accurate.

          When researchers seek to confirm bias, they usually succeed. It is not as though they have been free to report any doubts, caveats, misgivings, or alternate explanations.

          So, yeah, it is a narrative. Were it not, so called progressives should be imprisoned for continuing to take more flights, and fly more miles every year than everyone else. Your indifference to the destructi

          • Once again accusing science of not standing still, even though the basic facts have been the same for half a century. You don't believe a word of what you say: Real stupidity is inconsistent. Climate denialism is extremely consistent. Almost like there are a lot of rich people and murderous totalitarian regimes backing fossil fuels (gasp - who knew???).
        • You'd have to invoke some kind of magic or obfuscatory voodoo to deny it.

          Such as christian nationalism and the 3rd rate piss poor facsimile that passes for a conservative these days.

          • Conservative has always just meant "fearful". When the pace of change gets real, the fearful get legit psychotic.
      • Do you have a link to a particularly good example of what you mean?
  • I woke up to 41*F on Labor Day.

    This is quite bad for the garden!

  • It was a great summer. Sunny and hot, great for the shore and the pool. Now Labor Day has arrived and right on schedule it is low 70's F in the middle of the day, 50's at night. Great weather for riding, hiking, biking. I was hoping for another week of summer heat but no such luck. It's time to close the pool for the season.

  • Japan is cherry picking dates when the provable highs were August 6 and 9 with 7,000 F temperature at two places on the ground

  • by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Tuesday September 03, 2024 @01:58PM (#64759440)

    Kicked off by what we did in the last 200 years. On top of that fossil CO2 is still being pumped into the atmosphere at epic scales.

    We are screwed. I just hope some form of modern civilization can survive.

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