All over the world last month massive and sudden deluges swept away land, homes and people. Although it's the start of 'summer' in the Northern hemisphere, the Lake Baikal region in Siberia saw its worst flooding in living memory, flooding occurred in the deserts of Yemen, Libya, New Mexico and Mongolia, while cities from southern Mexico to southern Italy were hit with massive quantities of hail.
The manifestation of back-to-back extremes, in both space and time, is the defining characteristic of this 'age of transition' we have entered. The first half of June brought wet and wild with weather to Europe, with violent storms inundating the region with rain, cold and hail... but in the second half of the month an extreme heatwave struck, causing all-time record high temperatures in France and raging wildfires in Spain.
Strong earthquakes in China, Japan and Indonesia were accompanied by major volcanic eruptions along the Ring of Fire. The massive quantities of ash and dust they pump into the atmosphere, likely significant factors driving climate change, along with the 'meteor smoke' from trails of meteor fireballs, were 'reflected' last month by the major outbreak of 'night-shining' clouds at unprecedentedly low latitudes.
All that, and more, in this month's SOTT Earth Changes Summary...
Comment: More record-breaking heat and wildfire smoke forecast for Alaska