2021

Review of the year

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EADLY fires, floods and

freezes struck around the

world this year, as a report by

the world’s top climate scientists

said it is now an “established

fact” that humanity’s

greenhouse gas emissions

are linked to more-frequent,

more-intense extreme weather.

“The sad fact is climate

change and extreme weather

have become the norm,” says

Christiana Figueres, former

head of the UN Framework

Convention on Climate Change.

Temperature records are

usually exceeded by a fraction

of a degree. Yet in late June,

the village of Lytton in Canada

broke the country’s record high

by almost 5°C, reaching 49.6°C.

A day later, wildfires destroyed

much of the community.

Other parts of the northern

hemisphere were alight too.

The largest blazes scorched

the boreal forests in Siberia.

And California, which has had

several severe fire years in a row,

saw the Dixie fire burn around

390,000 hectares, making it the

state’s biggest on record. Turkey

and Greece were also badly

affected. When looked at

globally, wildfires released

a record amount of carbon

dioxide, the gas helping create

the warmer, drier conditions for

these events in the first place.

In July, Turkey endured a new

temperature high, while Sicily

in Italy saw Europe’s warmest

day on record a month later.

South America was afflicted

by drought, exemplified by

the continent’s second longest

river, the Paraná, dropping to

its lowest level in 77 years.

Too much heat wasn’t the

only problem. Texas shivered

in a historic cold snap with

temperatures as much as

28°C below average in February.

The freeze hit power and

water supplies and hundreds

of people died. One study

found the event was made more

likely by melting Arctic sea ice

disrupting weather patterns.

Floods took a heavy toll too.

The Chinese city of Zhengzhou

in Henan province was deluged

with more than 200 millimetres

of rainfall in 1 hour on 20 July,

an all-time national record. The

resulting flooding of the city’s

subway system killed 14 people.

The same month saw extreme

rainfall devastate parts of

Germany and Belgium, causing

landslides and more than

200 deaths. South Sudan was

wracked by its third year in

a row of extreme floods.

In September, people

drowned when basements in

New York flooded as the remains

of Hurricane Ida hit. “Climate

change poses an existential

threat to our lives, our economy,

and the threat is here,” said US

president Joe Biden. ❚

Clockwise from left:

A firefighter in

California in August;

The aftermath of

severe floods in

Germany in July;

East Flores in

Indonesia after

a cyclone and

landslides in April;

Unusually heavy

snow in Madrid,

Spain, in January

Extreme weather hits

Climate change

“Climate change poses

an existential threat

to our lives, and the

threat is here”

2021’s weather was striking for not just breaking records,

but often smashing them, says Adam Vaughan

30 | New Scientist | 18/25 December 2021