China (heatwave and drought)

Between June and August of 2022, China was scorched by its worst heatwave to date (Feng, 2022) – possibly even the globe’s most severe heat event on record (Le Page, 2022).

China, by way of its entry into the Arctic shipping sphere, is a significant contributor to the black carbon and other shipping emissions that escalate the greenhouse warming effects in the Arctic, which are felt across the world (Backman et al, 2021).

The persistent 2022 summer heat was compounded by drought and resulted in major impacts across various sectors. As multiple river levels decreased, and the country’s largest lake, Poyang Lake, was reduced to a quarter of its original size, over 300,000 residents were faced with water supply disruptions and hydroelectric plants experienced a drop in output by up to 50% in certain provinces (Indian Express, 2022; Al Jazeera, 2022; The New York Times, 2022).

The ensuing energy crisis was exacerbated by a heat-driven record demand in electricity throughout 19 provinces, which prompted rolling blackouts and forced factories, shopping malls and other businesses to shut down (Ziwen, 2022; Newburger, 2022).

Luckily, the dry and hot conditions caused limited crop damage (Global Times, 2022).

Altogether, the double climate whammy led to economic losses of over US$400 million in July alone (Newburger, 2022; Indian Express, 2022).

In October, the World Weather Attribution found that the drought across the Northern Hemisphere extratropics, China included, was made at least 20 times more likely by human-induced climate change (Schumacher et al., 2022).

Read more about heat stress here.

Read more about extreme weather here.