January sets a “scary” record as the hottest on record

The world’s temperature is increasing, and January 2024 has set a “frightening” record as the hottest in the world, surpassing the previous record recorded in January 2020.

Experts from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Panel (CS3) confirmed that last month was officially the hottest January on record.

According to the data, the average surface temperature was estimated at 13.14 °C (55.6 °F) in January 2024, which is 0.70 °C (1.26 °F) higher than the 1991-2020 average for January, and 0.12 °C (0.21 °F) higher. degrees Fahrenheit) than the previous warmest January temperature in 2020.

This makes January the eighth month in a row in which record temperatures were recorded, as every month since last June has been the hottest month on record.

“2024 begins with another record-breaking month,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Panel.

Scientists at the Copernicus Climate Change Panel rely on a combination of satellites, ships, planes and weather stations to monitor weather around the world.

Their measurements reveal that the average global temperature over the past 12 months is the highest on record, at 0.64°C (1.15°F) above the 1991-2020 average, and 1.52°C (2.73°F) above the pre-existing average. Industry in the period 1850-1900.

Scientists reported that temperatures in the European continent in January 2024 varied from much lower than the average for the period 1991-2020 in the northern European countries to much higher than the average in the south of the continent.

Outside Europe, temperatures were well above average in eastern Canada, northwest Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, and below average in western Canada, the central United States and most of eastern Siberia.

The El Niño warming phenomenon has begun to weaken in the tropical Pacific, but overall marine air temperatures have remained at an unusually high level.

The new data comes shortly after the Copernicus Climate Change Panel confirmed that 2023 was the hottest year on record.

The average global temperature last year was 14.98 degrees Celsius (58.96 degrees Fahrenheit), about 0.17 degrees Celsius (0.3 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the result of 2016, the previous hottest year.

“The extreme events we have observed over the past few months provide dramatic testimony to how far we now are from the climate in which our civilization evolved,” said Carlo Bontempo, Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Panel. “This has serious consequences for the Paris Agreement and all human endeavours.”

Burgess noted that there is only one way to limit this rise in global temperatures, saying: “Rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are the only way to stop the rise in global temperatures.”

Post-Good Friday earthquake!

A violent earthquake measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale struck the Rat Islands, located southwest of Alaska, at 05:01 UTC on February 4, 1965.

This earthquake is one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, and it caused a tsunami with a height of 10.7 meters on Simea Island. An earthquake of this magnitude could have destroyed entire cities, but the damage it caused was minor because the region has a low population density and is devoid of large cities.

The damage caused by the earthquake was in the form of cracks on the runways of the local airports on the islands of Attu and Simea, in addition to cracks that appeared on the walls of prefabricated wooden houses on the island of Adak, while the tsunami that followed that earthquake caused floods and caused damage to the island. Amchitka”, estimated at the time at US$10,000.

Moreover, the earthquake caused a small tsunami that reached the Hawaiian Islands, in addition to a low-level tsunami occurring on the shores of Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, California, and the coasts of Japan and the Russian Kuril Islands.

The effect of depth on the destructive power of earthquakes: 

The post-Good Friday earthquake violently struck the Rat Islands of the Aleutian Islands, which are of volcanic origin in Alaska. Its epicenter was at a depth of 30.3 kilometers below the surface of the Earth, and was the result of a rift approximately 600 kilometers long along the boundaries of the tectonic plate.

The depth of this strong earthquake falls into the category of shallow earthquakes, whose depth ranges from 0 to 70 kilometers, while medium earthquakes occur at a depth between 70 to 300 kilometers, and the depth of deep earthquakes ranges from 300 to 700 kilometers, and accordingly, shallow earthquakes tend to In general, they are more harmful than deep earthquakes, and the reason for this is that seismic waves of deeper origin lose their strength as they travel to the Earth’s surface.

Over the course of a hundred years before that date, this region was struck by more than a hundred earthquakes with a magnitude exceeding 7.0 on the Richter scale. The reason for this volcanic activity was that the Rat Islands, and their surrounding Aleutian Islands, arose volcanically in the form of an arc as a result of a “subduction” process. Occurring from the merging of the opposing Pacific and North American plates, these boundaries are centers of frequent, powerful earthquakes.

 Good Friday Earthquake:

A year before that earthquake, on March 27, 1964, the Good Friday earthquake occurred in Alaska, United States. It was the strongest earthquake in North America, and the third strongest earthquake in the entire history of seismic monitoring, with a magnitude of 8.4 on the Richter scale.

The violent earthquake caused devastation along the fault line between the Pacific and North American plates, and avalanches and landslides occurred, stopping rapid railway traffic in the region. It also resulted in a large tsunami and low waves that reached California and reached the coast of Japan. The tsunami waves caused destruction. Port facilities along the coasts of Alaska and British Columbia, in far western Canada.

The area most devastated is Prince William Bay, a promontory in the Gulf of Alaska on the southern coast of the US state of Alaska. Since the area is sparsely populated, human casualties were few, and schools were on vacation at that time.