TOKYO, Sept 2, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Japan suffered its joint warmest summer this 
year since records began, equalling the level seen in 2023, data from the 
weather office showed on Monday.

Climate scientists have already predicted that 2024 will be the hottest year 
on record for the Earth because of a warming planet.

Japan's long-term average temperature between June and August was 1.76 
degrees Celsius above the standard value, the joint highest since statistics 
started being kept in 1898, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

This July was already the hottest in Japan since records began, with the 
variation across the archipelago 2.16C higher than average.

In central Tokyo alone, 123 people died of heatstroke in July, when extreme 
heatwaves saw a record number of ambulances mobilised in the capital, 
according to local authorities.

Southern Japan was also hit by a major typhoon last week, one of the 
strongest to hit the archipelago of 125 million people in decades.

Typhoon Shanshan killed at least six people, including three family members 
in a landslide, and dumped record rain across many areas.

Typhoons in the region have been forming closer to coastlines, intensifying 
more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change, according to 
a study released in July.

A rapid attribution analysis by the Imperial College London using peer-
reviewed methodology calculated that Typhoon Shanshan's winds were made 26 
percent more likely by a warming planet.

A Japanese weather agency official cited the peculiar movement of westerly 
winds above Japan this year that "made it easier for the archipelago to be 
shrouded in warm air from the south".

"Also at play is the long-term effect of global warming, which is pushing up 
average temperature," weather agency official Kaoru Takahashi told AFP.

- Emissions -

Scientists say that fossil fuel emissions are worsening the length, frequency 
and intensity of heatwaves across the world.

From January to July, global temperatures were 0.7C above the 1991-2020 
average, according to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Record temperatures have been observed in the Mediterranean Sea, Norway's 
Arctic Svalbard archipelago and the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in the past few 
weeks alone.

Australia registered a record-high winter temperature last month, with the 
mercury hitting 41.6C (106.7F) in part of its rugged and remote northwest 
coast.

In Europe, Greece has seen 50 percent more summer wildfires this year than in 
2023 as well as its earliest heatwave and warmest winter on record.

The rising temperatures are leading to longer wildfire seasons and increasing 
the area burnt in the flames, according to the United Nations 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.