Why Are Extreme Heat Hotspots Defying Climate Expectations Worldwide?

Published

7 months ago

November 27, 2024

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A recent study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has identified regions globally experiencing extreme heatwaves surpassing climate model predictions. These anomalies, spanning every continent except Antarctica, have been linked to thousands of deaths, agricultural failures, and severe wildfires in recent years, according to several reports. The research highlights the challenges in understanding and projecting the physical dynamics driving these unexpected temperature extremes, raising concerns about the adequacy of current climate models in estimating regional risks.

Heatwave Intensification and Global Hotspots

The study, led by Dr Kai Kornhuber, an adjunct scientist at Columbia Climate School and senior research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, analysed data from the past 65 years. It identified areas where extreme heat is intensifying more rapidly than moderate temperatures, resulting in record-breaking maximum temperatures.

Examples include the June 2021 Pacific Northwest heatwave, where temperatures in Lytton, British Columbia, soared to 121.3 degrees Fahrenheit, causing a wildfire that decimated the town.

Regions most affected include northwestern Europe, parts of Asia such as central China, and regions in Australia, Africa, and South America, accoridng to sources. Northwestern Europe has seen the most consistent signals, with heatwaves contributing to 60,000 deaths in 2022 and 47,000 in 2023.

According to the study, summer peak temperatures in this region are increasing at twice the rate of average summer temperatures, exacerbated by the lack of widespread air conditioning.

Understanding the Underlying Mechanisms

Scientists attribute some of these extremes to disruptions in the northern hemisphere’s jet stream, which is influenced by Arctic warming. This destabilisation has created Rossby waves, trapping hot air over temperate regions.

Dr Samuel Bartusek, a co-author of the study, highlighted the interplay of factors behind the Pacific Northwest heatwave, including vegetation drying and atmospheric heat transport. However, the study acknowledges gaps in understanding, with some events described as “grey swans,” lying between predictability and randomness.

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SpaceX Starship Rocket Explodes During Ground Test at Texas Launch Pad

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2 hours ago

June 21, 2025

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SpaceX Starship Rocket Explodes During Ground Test at Texas Launch Pad

An explosion rocked SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas late Wednesdaynight after a Starship rocket exploded on the test pad during a routine ground test. The blast occurred at about 11:00 pm (0400 GMT Thursday) and created a huge fireball in the sky, with no immediate reports of casualties. The test, intended as a so-called static fire of the Starship system, caused the total destruction of the entire vehicle and some damage to nearby infrastructure. A security cordon was already in place, and all staff were safe and accounted for during the security alert.

SpaceX Starship Explosion During Test Linked to Pressurized Tank Failure in Nosecone, Says Company

As per a statement issued by SpaceX, the explosion was caused by “a sudden energetic event” during preparations for a static fire involving the Super Heavy booster. Initial analysis suggests a pressurised tank, known as a COPV (Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel) in the rocket’s nosecone, may have failed, though a full investigation is underway. Officials clarified that there were “no commonalities” between the COPVs on Starship and those used in the Falcon series. Fires broke out following the explosion but were quickly contained as the area had been cleared of personnel.

Starship, the rocket that is 403 feet tall, is billed as the most powerful large launch vehicle built. Intended to lift up to 150 metric tonnes and return to Earth, the Starship is a central part of Elon Musk’s dream of building a human settlement on Mars. Musk downplayed the explosion, referring to it as a “scratch” in an official statement. The vehicle was preparing for what would have been its 10th test flight.

The latest failure is the latest in a series of high-profile setbacks for Starship, including a prototype that literally blew up over the Indian Ocean in May. On that mission, the rocket launched as planned, but its booster did not accomplish a planned splashdown. Previous tries also saw the upper stage breaking apart during mid-flight. Notably, despite its own trials and tribulations, SpaceX doubled down on its frenetic development tempo of “test aggressively and iterate quickly”.

In recent days, the Federal Aviation Administration approved a plan by the company to conduct up to 25 launches a year of such craft, turning aside environmental concerns cited by conservation groups. NASA, which uses another SpaceX project, the Dragon, to ferry astronauts to orbit, also continues to support Starship as another deep-space transportation system down the line, so the long-term plan appears to remain on track.

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NASA Postpones Axiom Mission 4 Launch to Ensure Space Station Readiness After Repairs

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3 hours ago

June 21, 2025

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NASA Postpones Axiom Mission 4 Launch to Ensure Space Station Readiness After Repairs

NASA has postponed the launch to the International Space Station of an Axiom Space commercial crew mission, Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4), that was planned to launch on or after June 22 to allow more time to assess the readiness of the station’s configuration. The station is undergoing inspections following recent repair operations on the end of the Zvezda service module. Because the station’s life support systems and other onboard subsystems are interrelated, NASA is scrutinising all available data, including these dates, as the agency considers a new target launch date to ensure that the station has some tasks to remain operable before beginning to support more crew.

NASA Delays Historic Axiom Mission 4 to Ensure ISS Systems Are Ready for International Crew

As per a NASA update, the decision to stand down was made as part of standard operations to validate the readiness of all systems onboard the ISS to accommodate additional crew. The Zvezda module on board, which is central to sustaining life and propulsion, had been recently serviced. Because the space station is such a conjoined system, the agency is being extra cautious, requiring more time than usual to pore over technical data before giving the mission a green light.

Former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson is serving as Axiom’s Director of Human Spaceflight, leading the remarkably important orbital mission. She is part of the crew accompanying Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) astronaut Shubhanshu Shukla as pilot and two mission specialists – Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski (Poland) and Tibor Kapu (Hungary). It is a great operation in space, international co-operation, and it’s a great credit to all the countries involved.

While the astronauts remain in quarantine at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft are reported to be in excellent condition at Launch Complex 39A and ready for flight whenever a new launch date is established. Postponing is a precaution, but one that underscores NASA’s prioritisation of crew safety and mission success.

NASA and its collaborators have stressed the symbolic and scientific significance of the mission — its effect on not only the nations involved but on the future of commercial space travel as well. A new date and time for launch will be determined once ongoing evaluations are complete on the station’s readiness to host the incoming crew.

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Apollo Astronauts Found Orange Glass Beads on the Moon, Scientists Now Know Why

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2 days ago

June 19, 2025

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Apollo Astronauts Found Orange Glass Beads on the Moon, Scientists Now Know Why

When Apollo astronauts landed on the Moon, preparing to face a lifeless wasteland, they were taken aback to find the surface covered in gleaming orange glass beads. Tiny grains, about as small as a pencil tip, are left over from giant volcanic eruptions more than 3.5 billion years ago. Those raindrop-shaped beads were made from molten droplets that spouted during blazing explosions and then cooled in the Moon’s frigid vacuum. Such glass beads are safe in the storms of the airless, sheltered moon. They have been reconsidered yet again with forward-leaning tools, and with them come brightly dramatised, violent graphical bullet points of a world that once was tropical and full of colour.

Moon’s Ancient Glass Beads Reveal Explosive Volcanic Past and Clues to Lunar Interior Evolution

As per a recent analysis published in Universe Today, a team of scientists from Washington University and elsewhere employed high-resolution electron microscopy and ion beam techniques to analyse the mineral content of Apollo-era samples that contain a well-preserved record of lunar volcanic eruptions and associated eruption style, temperature, and chemical environment.

The beads range in colour from shiny black to matte dull red and vibrant orange, and they show differing eruption and magma source conditions on the moon’s surface. Some papers demonstrate rapid lava cooling, while others indicate so-called magma residence time. The surfaces of the beads contain isotopic data, and that information holds clues to the Moon’s molten interior, dating 3.3-3.6 billion years ago, as it first started to develop.

It’s because each bead is a testimony not to a dramatic volcanic event that took place on the Moon, but with each bead, there’s a journal entry written about that event, long ago, back in the days of our lunar volcanologists. “If we can date when that volcanism happened, we can start to assemble the history of what the moon was oriented like, the history of it and what was happening,” he says, “not just in the moon, but it has implications for planetary history in general; we can do this elsewhere in the solar system.

The proposed instruments for NASA’s Artemis missions will continue to search the Moon and discover more bead samples and other sampling varieties and enable a better understanding of the lunar volcanic record, rewriting lunar geology and transforming scientific views of the history of the cosmos.