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The (Real) Olympic Fever
Global heat is testing the limits of human survivability
The 2024 Olympic Games had its formal inauguration on Friday, July 26: a parade of national delegations and their 10,500 athletes floating along Paris’ main artery, the Seine River.
A deluge that dumped a month’s worth of rain during the ceremony made their elegant attires wet and strained the city’s 200-year-old combined sewer system. The resulting discharge of untreated sewage delayed the men’s triathlon event, which includes a swimming race in the river Seine.
But it was a blessing in disguise.
Two days later, our planet recorded its hottest day ever. A record that lasted only for a day because on Monday, the global average temperature went even higher. In fact, these may have been the hottest days in the last 120,000 years, driven by a huge anomaly over Antarctica that has resulted in temperatures around 28C above normal for large regions of the continent.
And it wasn’t like the athletes didn’t feel the heat in Paris like I didn’t feel it here in sub-zero temperatures in Patagonia: heavy rain in the French capital over the weekend was replaced with stifling heat. By Tuesday July 30, things got really nasty. Such swings between two weather extremes are typical of Earth’s altered climate according to a new study.
In the words of leading climate scientist Dr. Friederike Otto, “Climate change crashed the Olympics on Tuesday (July 30).”
However, this was the second warmest July ever to the remarkable record set in July 2023, which set the bar so high that it ended a 13-month record streak. July 2024 ended up with cooler monthly global temperatures than July 2023, by a small margin (~0.05 C°).
Talk about consolation prices.
