Tag - waves

 
 

WAVES

Tourists in Tokyo's Asakusa district ditch their jackets amid unseasonably warm temperatures in the capital and across Japan on Thursday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Feb 18, 2024
Preparing for the hottest year Japan has ever seen
In 2023, summer heat persisted across Japan well into the fall. Predictions by scientists indicate 2024 could be even worse.
A lenticular cloud is seen over a mountain at sunset in a clear sky, due to an anticyclone during a prolonged drought with warming temperatures and lack of rain in winter, in Ronda, Spain, on Tuesday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Feb 9, 2024
Climate change drives world to first 12-month spell over 1.5 C
Human-caused climate change and El Nino pushed temperatures higher.
People cool off on a beach in Rio de Janeiro in November amid a heat wave.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jan 13, 2024
El Nino could make 2024 hotter than record-setting 2023
The U.S. NOAA predicted there is a 1 in 3 chance that 2024 will be warmer than 2023 — and a 99% certainty that 2024 will rank among the five warmest years ever.
A Joshua Tree is seen as the York fire burns in the distance in the Mojave National Preserve on July 30, 2023. The year of 2023 was the hottest on record, with the increase in Earth's surface temperature nearly crossing the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius.
WORLD
Jan 10, 2024
2023 declared hottest recorded year as Earth nears key limit
Climate change intensified heatwaves, droughts and wildfires across the planet, and pushed the global thermometer 1.48 C above the preindustrial benchmark.
People holding parasols amid scorching heat in Osaka's Umeda district in July.
JAPAN
Jan 5, 2024
2023 marks Japan's hottest year on record
The average temperature in 2023 was 1.29 Celsius warmer than the mean temperature for 30 years through 2020, surpassing the previous record set in 2020.
A New South Wales firetruck at a hazard reduction burn site in Sydney in September
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 16, 2023
Australia swelters through heat wave amid 'extreme' fire danger
Heat wave alerts were in place for parts of Western Australia, New South Wales, South Australia and the Northern Territory.
The Climate Action Network holds an event at the venue of the U.N. climate change conferences in Dubai on Sunday to give its 'fossil' award to countries including Japan.
PODCAST / deep dive
Dec 7, 2023
Feeling anxious? Wastewater, heat and Japan’s year in climate
In a year that saw Japan release 24,000 tons of wastewater (so far) from Fukushima No. 1 as the planet smashed heat records, it’s no wonder climate anxiety is on the rise. Mara Budgen joins us to break down the year in environment news, where we could see hope, and what we should be worried about.
Visitors stroll through a tunnel of autumn maple leaves at Mount Koya in Wakayama Prefecture on Nov. 4.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / OUR PLANET
Nov 19, 2023
Fall is the new summer: Warming threatens Japan’s cultural calendar
Climate change is disrupting Japan’s autumn and seasonal experiences, and with it the rhythm of people’s lives.
Toru Yamano, chairman of the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives, tastes Koshihikari brand rice from Niigata Prefecture that contains immature grains, during a news conference in Tokyo on Nov. 9.
BUSINESS
Nov 15, 2023
Torrid summer heat hits crop production in Japan
The extreme weather over the summer is now leading to lower shipments and sharp price increases.
A street thermometer marks 40 degrees Celsius in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Tuesday.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 15, 2023
Heat projected to kill nearly five times more people by 2050
A team of international experts warned that without climate change action, the "health of humanity is at grave risk."
According to new analysis, 99% of the world’s population experienced above-average warmth in the past 12 months, making the period the hottest 12 months on record.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 10, 2023
‘No one is safe from climate change’ after hottest 12 months
Average temperatures between the start of November 2022 through October this year were 1.32 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
People wear lighter clothes in Tokyo on Saturday amid warm weather. On Tuesday, the capital marked a record high temperature for November.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Nov 7, 2023
Tokyo rewrites November temperature record set 100 years ago
The mercury hit 27.5 degrees Celsius in the Japanese capital on Tuesday, topping the November 1923 mark of 27.3 C.
Cracks run through the partially dried-up river bed of the Gan River during a regional drought in Nanchang, Jiangxi province, China, in August last year.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Nov 3, 2023
Global warming will reach 1.5 C threshold this decade, report says
The new paper adds to evidence suggesting that the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 C is already out of reach.
The city of Lyon after sunrise from the Fourviere esplanade as France issued a "red alert" for four southern regions amid a spell of excessively hot weather in August.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Oct 25, 2023
Record-breaking weather in 2023 shows impact of climate change
July was not only the hottest month in over 170 years of record-keeping, but likely the hottest month in over 100,000 years.
A man pours water atop his head outside the Emergency Aid Coalition during a heat wave in Houston in August.
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 14, 2023
2023 virtually certain to be warmest year on record, U.S. says
"There is a greater than 99% probability that 2023 will rank as the warmest year on record," the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.
Climate activists protest demanding that the World Bank stop fossil fuel financing on the first day of the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, in Marrakech, Morocco, on Monday
ENVIRONMENT / Energy / ANALYSIS
Oct 13, 2023
Why money matters when taking climate change to court
More litigation funding for climate lawsuits could mean more cases.
A mother carries her child inside her burnt house, following a wildfire in Bejaia, Algeria, on July 25
WORLD / Society
Oct 6, 2023
Tens of millions of children uprooted by climate disasters
Weather disasters fueled by climate change sparked 43.1 million child displacements from 2016 to 2021, the U.N. Children's Fund has warned.
South Korean tourists shield themselves from the sun in Ronda, Spain, on Aug. 9. Much of the world sweltered through unseasonably warm weather in September, in a year expected to be the hottest in human history.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Oct 5, 2023
September hottest on record by 'extraordinary' margin: EU monitor
The average surface air temperature for the month was around 1.75 C hotter than the September average in the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period.
The meteorological agency said the three-month periods for spring — March, April and May — and summer — June, July and August — were also the hottest on record, with the high temperatures expected to continue in the winter through February.
JAPAN
Oct 2, 2023
Japan logs hottest September on record
The average temperature in September was 2.66 degrees Celsius higher than the overall monthly average recorded between 1991 and 2020.
Women with portable electric fans in the Yurakucho district of Tokyo on Sept. 12. In Japan, Cool Biz became especially popular with women, who tended to wear lighter clothes and often complained about the cold temperatures needed to make business suits comfortable for their male colleagues.
JAPAN / Society
Sep 24, 2023
Where did all the dark-suited Japanese businessmen go?
Under Cool Biz, salarymen and government workers don short-sleeved shirts in the summer as offices are kept above 28 degrees Celsius to save energy.

Longform

High-end tourism is becoming more about the kinds of experiences that Japan's lesser-known places can provide.
Can Japan lure the jet-set class off the beaten path?