China: Red Alert for Temperatures Above 40º in the Center of the Country

The Meteorological Observatory of the city of Luohe, with a population of 2.6 million inhabitants and located in the center of Chinaissued this Thursday a red alert for high temperatures that will exceed 40 degrees in some areas, The Paper collects today. Henanthe province in which it is located Luohe will record maximum temperatures above 36 degrees in most of its territory and its capital, Zhengzhou, will reach or exceed 40 degrees today and tomorrow according to the weather service China Weather Network.

Henan It is the third most populous Chinese province in China with about 99 million inhabitants. According to the Central Meteorological Observatory of China high temperatures will remain for seven days in various parts of the country and the heat will be especially intense on Friday and Saturday.

Twelve Chinese provinces, most of them in the center and north of the country, will see the mercury rise to 38 or even 40 degrees.

Experts quoted by The Paper attribute the heat to clear skies, strong solar radiation and a mass of warm air during these dates. Last July, more than 300 people died in the province of Henan due to floods caused by rains of an intensity not seen in decades. Also, last September was the hottest September since 1961 in the Asian country.

Song Lianchun, a meteorologist at the National Meteorological Center, stated last summer: “We cannot say that an extreme weather event is directly caused by climate change, but in the long term, global warming causes an increase in the intensity and frequency of these events.”