GENEVA, July 10 (Xinhua) -- Globally, this June marks the second warmest on record and this year to date the hottest La Nina year on record, which has been featured by high impacting extreme weather during the early summer in the northern hemisphere, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)said on Tuesday.
Temperatures were not only exceptionally high over large parts of northern Siberia in June, but also well above average over much of the United States, central Canada and North Africa, and over the Middle East.
The WMO said although it is not possible to attribute the individual extreme events of June and July to climate change, they are compatible with the general long-term trend due to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases.
As a result, episodes of extreme heat and precipitation are increasing around the globe. For example, Japan has suffered the worst flooding and landslide in decades, with many daily rainfall records broken.
Between June 28 and July 8, there was extraordinary heavy rainfall caused by huge amount of water vapor provided by a stationary rainy front in addition to damp air remaining from Typhoon Prapiroon. West Japan and Hokkaido experienced record precipitation during the period, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
Meanwhile, extreme and unusual temperatures have been recorded around the world. On June 28, Quriyat, just south of Muscat, on the coast of Oman, recorded a 24-hour minimum temperature of 42.6 degrees Celsius, meaning that the coolest overnight temperature did not drop below.
According to the WMO, many recent studies have found that the probability of the extreme event has been influenced by human activity, either directly or indirectly.
Of a set of 131 studies published between 2011 and 2016 in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 65 percent found that the event's probability was significantly affected by anthropogenic activities, the WMO said.
