China hit by a whiplash of climate-fuelled extreme weather events

By Anders Lorenzen

China, the world’s largest carbon emitter, was impacted last week by a cascade of interconnected extreme weather events.

China’s perfect storm of extreme weather

The combined forces of torrential rain, a tropical storm, landslides, flash floods, and extreme heat have hit China, as the recently coined scientific term ‘whiplash’ becomes more normal. 

Earlier this week, torrential rain swept across swathes of China, as the impacts of Tropical Storm Danas drenched coastal tech hubs. Further inland, monsoon rains unleashed deadly landslides and floods, engulfing a 1,400 km arc.

A subtropical high-pressure system has been heating the north-eastern seaboard and central provinces for the week before, straining the power grids and parching the croplands.

Scientists and meteorologists have linked climate change to the rise in extreme weather faced by the world’s second-largest economy and population. 

How does this extreme weather event correlate to weather whiplash?

The subtropical high-pressure system caused a perfect weather whiplash. The monsoon clouds in the country’s interior combined with the rain bands brought by Danas, bringing almost record rainfall to the megacities and Chinese economic superpowers of Shanghai, Wuhan, and Changsha.

Weather whiplash is the phenomenon of rapid swings between extremes in weather.

Typhoon Danas

Danas began in the Philippines on June 30^th. The typhoon had severe impacts there and in the Chinese regions of South China, East China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

At its peak, it sustained winds of 140 km/h. It is estimated to have caused $95 million in damage so far.

Climate impacts in China

In China, heatwaves have become hotter and longer, with more extreme storms and torrential rainfall, in line with escalating warming trends.

The scientific line when it comes to associating extreme weather events with climate change is that before the given event has been analysed and studied, it cannot be said to what level it has been influenced by climate change. But in general, weather patterns are becoming more wild, unpredictable, severe, and frequent as the planet continues to heat up, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels.

Anders Lorenzen is the founding Editor of A greener life, a greener world.

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