Beijing officials reported on Thursday that this week saw the hottest late-October day ever recorded in the Chinese capital, with temperatures climbing beyond 27 degrees Celsius all throughout the city.
With heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires plaguing Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America in recent months—events that experts claim are being exacerbated by climate change—this year is expected to be the hottest in recorded human history.
This week, a global alliance of climate scientists declared that in 2023, numerous records pertaining to climate change were shattered by “enormous margins”.
Beijing’s Nanjiao Observatory logged a high of 27.5 degrees Celsius (81.5 Fahrenheit) on Wednesday, “setting a record high for air temperature in the last ten days of October”, the city government said in a post on its official social media account.
In the northern Chinese regions surrounding the capital, temperatures neared or exceeded 30 degrees Celsius, with 237 observatories breaking heat records for this time of the year, the post said, adding that “this type of temperature is relatively rare for the last ten days of October”.
This summer, China recorded record high temperatures and harsh weather.
In August, a lot of rain fell, causing widespread flooding and killing hundreds of people in northern China. Village bridges in the Beijing suburbs were washed away by swollen rivers.
