Deadly heat waves in Mecca and Greece underscore climate crisis
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Muslim worshippers walk around the Kaaba, Islam's holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca on June 13, ahead of the annual Hajj pilgrimage, one of the world's largest religious gatherings. Photo: Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images
As the U.S. faces another potentially record heat wave this week, the Middle East and Europe's Mediterranean have endured extreme temperatures that have proven deadly.
The big picture: Multiple heat-related deaths have been reported in Greece during the country's earliest heat wave on record and Jordan's official news agency said Sunday "14 Jordanian pilgrims died and 17 others were missing" in the searing heat while on the Islamic Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
- The heat waves sweeping these regions this month have been made "at least five times more likely" because of human-caused climate change, per new Climate Central analysis.
Context: Climate Central's analysis is based on the group's Climate Shift Index (CSI), which compares observed or forecast temperatures with simulations of the same weather conditions minus excess atmospheric greenhouse gases, per Alex Fitzpatrick.
- The idea is to compare real-world conditions with what might have been the case had human-caused climate change been absent.
- Saudi Arabia had a CSI of 5, meaning that human-caused climate change made a given daily average temperature five times more likely as of Monday morning. Greece, which has endured two weeks of extreme heat, had a CSI of 5 last week and 2 on Monday. Parts of Turkey had a CSI of 5.
Between the lines: Greece has been among the worst-affected European countries for extreme weather caused by the climate crisis in recent months, enduring an intense heat wave, severe wildfires and heavy rains flooding the country's streets last year.
- A joint report by UN and European Union agencies found in April that Europe's temperatures are rising about twice as fast the global average due to human-caused climate change — making it the fastest-warming continent on Earth.
- Meanwhile, the world's most water-stressed region can be found in the Middle East and North Africa, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization notes.
- A 2023 report found water stress levels are "expected to worsen for most MENA countries under a 'business as usual' climate scenario to 2040."
- Humanitarian nonprofit Norwegian Refugee Council warns this region is "already overwhelmed by displacement crises" and "the ruinous effects of climate change may push millions towards further displacement as a result of water scarcity, drought and extreme weather."
Go deeper: The era of real-time climate change attribution is here
