Satellite vision 2023： El Nino stirs up the global climate.
In April 2023, the Copernicus Climate Change Service of the European Union indicated that the global average temperature may reach a new high in 2023 or 2024 due to the influence of climate change and the expected return of El Ni? o weather phenomenon. In July, the World Meteorological Organization announced the formation of El Ni? o conditions in the tropical Pacific for the first time in seven years. On November 30th, the World Meteorological Organization announced that 2023 was the hottest year in human history on record.
Under the background of global warming, the stronger the intensity of El Nino, the more obvious the increase of global average temperature. High temperature weather has caused many mountain fires and droughts around the world.
This satellite image shows a mountain fire in British Columbia, Canada. 2023 is the longest wildfire season on record in Canada. The wildfire lasted for more than five months, and the accumulated area of fire exceeded 180,000 square kilometers, breaking the record of 73,000 square kilometers in 1989.
This satellite image animation shows the changes brought by the drought in 2023 to Brazilian Amazon. The Amazon rainforest, known as the "lung of the earth", suffered a rare drought in a hundred years this year. Many local fish died and the water level dropped, which not only made some lakes in the Amazon basin almost dry up, but also made some local villages face the risk of becoming "islands".
↑ This satellite image shows the changes brought by drought to the Paso severino Reservoir in the Uruguayan province of Florida. Paso severino Reservoir is about 70 kilometers away from Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, and it is an important source of drinking water in the capital region.
The rise of ocean surface temperature caused by global warming makes typhoons and tropical cyclones develop more rapidly, and therefore poses a greater threat to coastal areas. El Nino is often the "behind-the-scenes pusher" of heavy rains and floods.
Hurricane Otis was originally a tropical storm, which was upgraded to a catastrophic category 5 hurricane in more than ten hours. It landed from the Pacific coast of southern Mexico in the early morning of October 25, 2023, with a maximum wind speed of 266 kilometers per hour. The Mexican federal government issued a communique on November 2, announcing that 47 cities in Guerrero state in southern Mexico were listed as disaster areas due to the impact of Hurricane Otis.
↑ This satellite image shows the rio grande do sul in southern Brazil being hit by floods at the end of November 2023. According to the local civil defense department, as of November 22, the flood has caused at least five deaths and about 28,000 people have been displaced.
This satellite image shows the Death Valley National Park in California, USA, which was flooded by tropical storm Hillary. It is reported that the roads in the park were damaged by floods, and some expressways were seriously damaged. Facilities in the park were also damaged by floods. According to the National Weather Service, the last time a tropical storm landed in this area was in 1939.
According to the World Meteorological Organization’s Annual Report on Climate Service in 2023, the death rate caused by extreme high temperature is the highest among all extreme weather, and the death rate related to high temperature may be 30 times higher than that currently recorded. The heat wave will further aggravate air pollution. In addition, problems such as extreme drought caused by climate change have also aggravated the risk of food insecurity and the spread of many climate-sensitive infectious diseases, such as vector-borne diseases such as dengue fever and malaria, and diseases transmitted by food and water.
This is a withered crop photographed in the suburb of Sana ‘a, Yemen on August 25th, 2023.
↑ In August 2023, high temperature weather killed tens of thousands of chickens in Israel. Since this summer, Israel has experienced several rounds of high temperature weather, and the temperature in some cities has exceeded 40 degrees Celsius. Kahnert, an Israeli agricultural natural risk insurance fund, said on August 14th that according to a preliminary assessment, the losses caused by the current high temperature weather to the country’s agriculture are about 20 million new shekels (US$ 5.3 million).
In June, 2023, smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted to New York, USA, and the streets of new york were in a dim state. According to the data of Copernicus Climate Change Service, the European Union’s climate monitoring agency, the carbon emissions caused by wildfires in Canada have reached an unprecedented level this year, reaching 473 million tons, more than three times the previous year’s highest record.
On September 18, 2023, patients with dengue fever were treated in a hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh. This year, the worst dengue fever outbreak in Bangladesh was recorded in the country. According to the data released by the General Administration of Health Services on November 19th, the cumulative number of confirmed cases has exceeded 300,000 this year.
It is urgent to deal with El Nino, control the global climate and reduce emissions. China is an activist in promoting global climate governance. It not only has the largest clean power generation network in the world, but also tries its best to provide relevant support and help to other developing countries.
In recent years, the output value of energy conservation and environmental protection industry in China has increased by more than 10% annually, and the installed capacity of hydropower, wind power and photovoltaic power generation ranks first in the world. China’s installed capacity of non-fossil energy increased to 50.9%, supplying 50% of the world’s wind power and 80% of photovoltaic equipment; The intensity of carbon dioxide emission in China in 2022 decreased by 51% compared with 2005; China ranks first in the world in the production and sales of new energy vehicles, with more than 18 million vehicles.
↑ This is a panoramic view of the coal-fired power station in Kassem Port, Pakistan (photo taken on November 28, 2017). Kassem Power Station project is a large-scale energy project implemented in China-China Economic Corridor. It adopts supercritical units independently designed and manufactured by and limestone-gypsum wet desulfurization process, and uses seawater secondary circulation cooling and seawater desalination to replenish water, thus retaining blue sky and clear water for the local area.
↑ This is the Schuback Wind Power Station in Jordan, which was shot on June 15th, 2023. Jordan is short of energy and mineral resources and has long relied on imports. The wind power and photovoltaic project of China Three Gorges International in Jordan is expected to provide Jordan with 440 million kWh of green electricity every year, which is one of the largest clean energy projects in the country.
↑ This is the largest factory roof photovoltaic power generation project in chonburi province, Thailand, which was filmed on November 7, 2023. The project is jointly built by China enterprise Pulin Chengshan and Thailand WHA MUGUR PETRU CIUBANCAN Infrastructure and Power Volkswagen Co., Ltd. The second phase of the project is expected to be completed next year. After being connected to the grid, the annual power generation will be more than 30 million kWh, which will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 30,000 tons and save 15,000 tons of standard coal every year.
As an active advocate and pragmatic practitioner of South-South cooperation on climate change, China’s performance was highly praised by relevant United Nations agencies and developing countries at the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28).
On December 3, 2023, at the car ferry stop of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai, people got off the Hagrid electric bus of Suzhou Jinlong Company in China. Since the opening of the Dubai Conference on United Nations Climate Change, China brand electric vehicles such as Hagrid and BYD have provided shuttle bus service for this conference, and about 50 battery cars from Guangdong Lutong have provided shuttle service in the "Green Zone" of the conference, which together constitute a beautiful landscape of the conference.
Producer: Wang Jianhua Zhong Haoxi
Planning: Wu Wei, Cheng Ying, Zhang Jiayang
Coordinator: Gao Wei
Satellite Remote Sensing and Technical Support: Zeng Yingying and Qi Lijun
Photography: Wang Dongzhen, Wang Teng, Liu Tian and Guo Ke
Mohamed Mohamed mohammed abu Gush
Xinhua news agency photography department
State key laboratory of media integration production technology and system
Joint production
Source: Xinhua News Agency
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