(Los Angeles) Extreme heat gripping the western United States is set to peak Thursday, a wave that may herald a suffocating summer as the United Nations warns the planet is overheating.
Las Vegas swelters in 44 degrees Celsius and the desert region of Death Valley must approach 49 degrees, due to an oppressive anticyclonic weather system.
According to scientists, repeated heatwaves are an unequivocal marker of global warming and these heat waves are expected to multiply, last longer and intensify.
“Today, both high and low temperature records will likely be broken or tied between California, Nevada and Arizona,” according to the U.S. Weather Service (NWS).
Specialists believe that these abnormally high temperatures as summer approaches may be a harbinger of a suffocating summer.
Air-conditioned venues have been opened to provide respite to people without air conditioning at home in America’s gaming capital.
“We haven’t really had time to acclimate to the fact that it’s warming up so much and so quickly,” Glen Simpson, an ambulance service director, told ABC affiliate Channel 13.
In California, the situation in the very agricultural region of the Central Valley is also “particularly worrying,” according to federal authorities. “There will be little or no nighttime respite for those who do not have an effective cooling system or cannot adequately hydrate,” according to the NWS.
Temperatures are expected to drop slightly in the coming days, but the heat wave will extend north into Oregon and Washington state.
May 2024 was the hottest May on record worldwide (on land and sea), the 12th month in a row to break its own record, according to the European observatory Copernicus.
And it is 80% likely that the global average temperature over a calendar year will “temporarily” exceed pre-industrial levels by more than 1.5°C by 2028, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned this week.