China Logs Hottest August in More Than Six Decades

AFP/APP

Beijing: China logged its hottest August in more than six decades last month, its national weather service said, after the country endured a summer of extreme weather and heatwaves across much of its north and west.

China is the leading emitter of the greenhouse gases that scientists say are driving global climate change and making extreme weather events more frequent.

Beijing has pledged to bring planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions to a peak by 2030 and to reach net zero by 2060.

On Thursday, the China Meteorological Administration said in a statement: “China experienced prolonged and extreme high temperatures” in August.

“The national average temperature was the highest for the same period since 1961,” it added.

The national average temperature in August was 22.6 degrees Celsius (72.68 degrees Fahrenheit) — 1.5°C higher than the same period in a typical year, according to Jia Xiaolong, deputy director of the National Climate Center.

“Northern regions experienced frequent and highly destructive rainstorms, while large-scale heatwaves persisted in the southern regions,” Jia said.

“Nineteen national weather stations recorded daily maximum temperatures that either matched or exceeded historical records,” he said.

The record-breaking figures followed another report from the weather service on Sunday that average air temperatures last month in eight provinces, regions, and cities “ranked the hottest for the same period” since records began.

They included the megacity of Shanghai, and the provinces of Jiangsu, Hebei, Hainan, Jilin, Liaoning, and Shandong, as well as the northwest region of Xinjiang, the weather service said.

A further five provinces recorded their second-hottest August, while seven more endured their third-hottest.

Chinese weather authorities had also said July was the country’s hottest month since records began, state media reported, as extreme temperatures persisted across large parts of the globe.

Extreme heat has seared much of East Asia this summer. Japan also said on Monday that its long-term average temperature between June and August was 1.76°C above the standard value, equalling the level seen in summer 2023 — the highest since statistics started being kept in 1898.