World extreme weather events of ‘monster’ heatwaves, snowpacks and floods – and warnings of what’s to come
Extreme weather is gripping parts of the world amid growing fears this summer could see more record-breaking heat.
There have already been wildfires across Spain as temperatures soar to unprecedented levels for the time of the year – while the increasing impact of climate change continues to challenge communities and nations.
Which parts of the world are seeing extreme conditions?
Spain
Spain is bracing itself for its hottest ever day for the month of April this week with forecasters predicting temperatures of up to 40C (104F).
Temperatures will reach around 35C (95F) from Wednesday and will rise further into Thursday and Friday.
Such high levels are not normally seen until July and it comes after parts of Spain endured the driest March in 20 years.
The top temperature ever recorded in Spain for April was 37.4C (99.3F) in 2011, but this is expected to be beaten.
Experts have said the Mediterranean region is warming faster than the global average due to climate change.
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Record-breaking heat could hit Spain
Asia
Last weekend, people in Bangkok and other areas of Thailand were warned not to go outside due to the extreme heat.
The capital hit 42C (100F) – but the national weather service said the heat index, which is what the temperature feels like when combined with humidity, hit a record 54C (129F).
Thailand normally expects highs of 37C (98.6F) at this time of the year – while weather watchers said the country’s meteorological service noted a record 45C (113F) for the first time last week.
Cordelia Lynch, Asia correspondent for Sky News, said many people “try to scurry between air-conditioned buildings as much as they can – a luxury those working outside can’t afford of course”.
“The so-called ‘monster deadly heatwave’ has ripped through southeast and south Asia,” she added.
“What seems distinct in Asia this year, is just how many countries have seen record heat and how early it’s come.”
In recent weeks, countries such as Japan, Bangladesh, India, China and Laos were among more than a dozen which saw soaring temperatures.
Authorities in parts of India shut schools for a week with temperatures above 40C.
Most of India is expected to have above-normal high temperatures between April and June, its national weather forecaster has said.
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Record-breaking heatwave hits parts of Thailand
California
Meanwhile, in central California, fears are growing over flooding following extreme conditions which saw record levels of “snowpack” and rain.
Some communities between Los Angeles and San Francisco could be marooned by rising rivers or flooded out, experts have warned.
Officials are concerned the spring snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada will be so massive the north fork of the Kings River will not be able to contain it.
Much warmer weather could see an “accelerated snowmelt”.
It comes after nearly 10,000 Californians fled their homes last month after widespread flooding and snow.
What could happen in 2023 and 2024?
Average global temperatures could hit record highs this year or in 2024, climate scientists have warned.
Experts said the temperatures will be driven by climate change and from the anticipated return of the El Nino weather phenomenon.
Climate models suggest that after three years of the La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which generally lowers global temperatures slightly, the world will experience a return to El Nino, the warmer counterpart, later this year.
During El Nino, winds blowing west along the equator slow down, and warm water is pushed east, creating warmer surface ocean temperatures.
“El Nino is normally associated with record-breaking temperatures at the global level. Whether this will happen in 2023 or 2024 is not yet known, but it is, I think, more likely than not,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
The world’s hottest year on record so far was 2016, which coincided with a strong El Nino.
However, climate change has fuelled extreme temperatures even in years without the phenomenon.
In February, Antarctic sea ice levels also hit a record low.
What major weather-related events are experts predicting?
Scientists have warned of more extreme heatwaves, wildfires, drought and flooding.
The last eight years were the world’s eighth hottest on record – reflecting the longer-term warming trend driven by greenhouse gas emissions.
Dr Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute, said El Nino-fuelled temperatures could worsen the climate change impacts countries are already experiencing.
“If El Nino does develop, there is a good chance 2023 will be even hotter than 2016 – considering the world has continued to warm as humans continue to burn fossil fuels,” Dr Otto said.
Professor Adam Scaife, the head of long-range forecasting at the Met Office, said: “The current record for global temperature occurred in 2016 and it’s no coincidence that followed the last big El Nino.
“If we get a big El Nino at the end of this year, then we’re likely to break the record for global temperature in 2024.”
Europe experienced its hottest summer on record in 2022, while extreme rainfall caused disastrous flooding in Pakistan.
In the UK, households and water companies are already being urged to focus on saving water as officials prepare for another dry, hot summer.
This week, a hosepipe ban was extended across parts of Devon.
South West Water, which introduced a ban in Cornwall and a small area of North Devon last August, made the decision to “replenish” depleted water supplies.
Read more on Sky News:
While Spain bakes, the approaching summer could be a scorcher
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2022 was a year of weather extremes in the UK
What about the oceans?
It was revealed by a new study that global sea temperatures had hit record levels this month – and are growing at a rate not previously seen.
The temperature of the seas off the coast of North America were 13.8C higher than the average for 1981-2011.
A change in the temperatures of the oceans can have a further impact on extreme weather alongside contributing to the rise in sea levels. It can also kill off marine life.
It comes after the World Meteorological Organisation revealed last week that global sea levels are rising at more than double the pace they did in the first decade of measurements in 1993-2002 and hit a new record high last year.
World
Biden adding ‘fuel to fire’, Kremlin says – as Ukraine allowed to fire US missiles into Russia
The Kremlin has criticised President Joe Biden for adding “fuel to the fire” after giving Ukraine permission to launch US missiles into Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “It is obvious that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to… continue adding fuel to the fire and provoking further escalation of tensions around this conflict.”
Russia‘s Foreign Ministry added that the action by Mr Biden‘s administration would fundamentally alter the nature of the war and trigger “an adequate and tangible” response.
The UK has refused to reveal if it plans to follow suit, for example extending the use of British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles by Ukraine to hit targets inside Russia.
Follow latest: Ukraine war live updates
Britain’s Defence Secretary John Healey told the House of Commons commenting would “compromise operations and security”, adding that he will speak with the US and Ukrainian defence secretaries on Monday evening.
At the G20 Summit in Brazil, Sir Keir Starmer gave a similar response: “I’m not going to get into operational details because the only winner, if we were to do that, is [Vladimir] Putin, and I’m not prepared to do that.”
For over a year Ukraine has been calling on America changes its policy on the use of long-range missiles.
Joe Biden attends the G20 Summit. Pic: AP
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has given a muted response to Mr Biden’s decision to expand the use of the American-made Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).
“Strikes are not made with words… the missiles will speak for themselves,” he said.
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‘The missiles will speak for themselves’
Biden risks triggering ‘World War Three’
The US has eased restrictions on the use of ATACMS, which has a range of up to 190 miles, after Russia began deploying North Korean ground troops to supplement its own forces in the conflict.
Donald Trump Jr, the son of president-elect Donald Trump, suggested in a post on X that Mr Biden was risking a third world war “before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives”.
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The use of tactical missile systems for Ukraine
Hungary: Policy is ‘astonishingly dangerous’
There has been a strong, but mixed, reaction across Europe to America’s change of policy.
Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, said the decision was “astonishingly dangerous” – although the country’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has a close and often sympathetic relationship with Moscow.
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Why has US let Ukraine use its missiles?
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Slovakia’s leader Robert Fico, who has also fostered a stronger relationship with his Russian counterpart, said it was an “unprecedented escalation of tensions” and “a decision that thwarts hopes for the start of any peace talks”.
But other countries have been more positive.
Polish President Andrzej Duda said: “This decision was very necessary… Russia sees that Ukraine enjoys strong support and that the West’s position is unyielding and determined.”
Meanwhile, Estonia’s foreign minister Margus Tsahkna was equally positive. He said easing restrictions on Ukraine was “a good thing”, adding: “We have been saying that from the beginning – that no restrictions must be put on the military support [for Ukraine].”
Missiles are ‘not a game changer’
Former British ambassador to Russia Sir Toby Brenton has told Sky News: “Nobody is really expecting this to be a game changer.
“They’re expecting it to make life more difficult for the Russians, slow the Russian advance down, but… from all the stories I’m hearing, there are not actually that many of these missiles available to be used.”
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A Russian missile strike on Odesa killed 10 people on Monday. Pic: Ukrainian Emergency Services/Reuters
A residential building damaged by a Russian missile strike in Sumy. Pic: Reuters
On Monday, a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions killed 11 people in a residential area of Sumy in northern Ukraine.
Another missile barrage sparked apartment fires in the southern port of Odesa, killing at least 10 people, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said.
Meanwhile, Tuesday marks 1,000 days since Russia began its full-scale invasion in 2022.
Barely anyone speaks – there is virtual silence apart from the sounds of passing vehicles and the wind whipping through flags and photographs commemorating the dead in a war that started 1,000 days ago when Russia invaded.
What is really striking is the sheer number of people who have died, and this memorial in Kyiv’s Maidan Square represents just some of those who gave their lives defending their country.
Soldiers in camouflage fatigues pause to pay their respects to comrades, civilians stop and stare, heads often bowed.
At the same time, on mobile phones, news alerts announce another missile strike on Ukraine. This time in the port city of Odessa.
More dead, more injured, it never stops here.
As this war grinds on, with Russia making significant gains in the east, it says something about the Ukrainian people’s resolve to keep going.
For months the Ukrainian government has been pleading with the United States and its western partners for permission to use long range weapons to attack deep inside Russia.
A ruined building in Odessa
Follow latest: Moscow warns US over missile decision
Analysis: Moscow’s words won’t worry the West – but what will happen behind the scenes?
These weapons would allow Ukraine to target airfields and bases where drones and missiles are launched against Ukraine, and to attack supply routes and military camps. In effect – to take the fight to Russia.
Time and again civilians and soldiers alike tell me the West and the United States are scared of annoying or provoking Russia. Wrongly or rightly, most believe the West is happy for Ukraine to hold the line but not beat Russia.
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Ukraine allowed to use US long-range missiles in Russia
News that President Biden, in the twilight of his time in office, has changed his position allowing American missiles to be fired into Russia, has been greeted with euphoria.
Although it’s tempered by his decision to allow them to be used only in the Kursk region of Russia, where North Korean troops are augmenting the Russian military.
MP Lesia Vasylenko
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I met Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko in the capital, she heard the news as she arrived back in Ukraine from a trip abroad.
She says the decision has “lifted spirits here” and calls the move “extremely significant” but says it needs to go further.
“As members of parliament we have been echoing the president in every single meeting we have abroad, asking for the permission to strike inside Russia’s territory, what this means is permission to liquidate 16 airbases from which Russia on a daily and nightly bases sends airplanes carrying missiles that are hitting Ukrainian homes, Ukrainian infrastructure, and basically making civilian life impossible in the country,” she told me.
She continued: “Having permission to strike inside of all of Russia would really change things round for the people of Ukraine first and foremost, but also on the battlefield.”
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She told me that despite the war dragging on, the Ukrainian people remain resolute and united.
“The resilience is still there, for us this resilience equals survival, if Ukraine stops fighting there will be no Ukraine, there will be no us as Ukrainians, there will be no housing, we would not be allowed to live under the Ukrainian flag, so the only option here is to make sure that Russia stops fighting and that Russia can never fight again.”
Over the past almost two weeks I have driven from the west to the east of this huge country.
It strikes me that you can barely pass a town or a village cemetery without the blue and gold colours of the Ukrainian flag punctuating the grey skies – marking the graves of the war dead.
Flags mark the graves of Ukraine’s war dead across the country
A thousand days since the Russian invasion began, soldiers and civilians alike are still dying, but Ukraine is still fighting.
A thousand days ago, few thought that was likely.
An undersea fibre optic cable between Germany and Finland has stopped working and might have been deliberately cut by an unknown party, according to authorities.
The 729 mile (1,173km) C-Lion1 cable under the Baltic Sea from Helsinki to Rostock went offline just after 2am GMT on Monday.
The outage was reported by Finnish state-controlled cyber security and telecoms company Cinia.
A physical inspection has not yet been done but the abrupt nature suggests it was completely severed by an outside force, said chief executive Ari-Jussi Knaapila.
Germany and Finland‘s foreign ministers said they were “deeply concerned” and it “immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage”.
A joint statement said: “Our European security is not only under threat from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors.
“Safeguarding our shared critical infrastructure is vital to our security and the resilience of our societies.”
Cinia said “corrective measures” were under way and a repair ship was being prepared.
The damage to the fibre optic cable could take around five to 15 days to fix, Mr Knaapila told reporters.
The pipe runs under the Baltic Sea between Helsinki and Rostock
He said the damage occurred near the southern tip of Sweden’s Oland island and that Cinia was working with authorities to investigate.
The cable links central European telecoms networks to Finland, other Nordic countries and Asia.
A Chinese ship was blamed for damaging another cable, the Balticconnector gas pipeline, last year. Pic: Finnish Border Guard/Reuters
Another submerged gas line and several telecoms cables were seriously damaged last year in the Baltic Sea.
A Chinese container ship dragging its anchor was named as prime suspect by Finnish police. However, they have not said if they think the damage was intentional.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
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Two years ago, a gas pipeline from Russia to Germany – the Nord Steam – was also damaged by explosions.
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