One of China’s biggest cities is still officially in summer, despite it being mid-November, as temperatures have failed to drop below the threshold considered necessary to mark the change in season.
This week, Guangzhou, a hot and humid city of nearly 19 million people in southern China’s Guangdong province, broke a three-decade heat record, according to the local meteorological service. As of Wednesday the city had experienced 235 summer days, beating 1994’s 234-day season.
Guangdong’s meteorological service pegs the change of seasons to the temperature, not the calendar date. Autumn is considered to start when the five-day average temperature is lower than 22C. The season generally begins around 9 November, but temperatures are forecast to stay at summer levels until at least 18 November, according to a statement published on the provincial government’s WeChat account. This year, summer began on 23 March.
Ai Hui, a senior engineer at the Guangzhou Climate and Agricultural Meteorological Centre, was quoted in Chinese state media as saying the reason for the long summer was that pressure from the Siberian high, a massive collection of cold dry air that affects weather patterns in the northern hemisphere, was unusually weak this year. That meant less cold wind had been blowing through Guangzhou. The city’s average temperature is currently 24.9C, 1.2C higher than historical averages.
In April, Guangzhou was hit by a tornado that killed at least five people and injured dozens. The province has also experienced severe flooding.
Extreme weather events have become more common across China in recent years, with droughts, floods and heatwaves putting strain on the infrastructure, especially electricity grids.
Analysis has found that human-caused climate breakdown is supercharging extreme weather across the world, driving more frequent and more deadly disasters, from heatwaves to floods to wildfires. At least a dozen of the most serious events of the last decade would have been all but impossible without human-caused global heating.
In 2022, a long-running heatwave pushed electricity use to record levels in cities across China, including Guangzhou, as people and businesses used their air conditioning units at maximum levels in an effort to stay cool. This triggered major power outages.
China’s leaders have since become extremely concerned about energy security, which analysts worry is slowing down the country’s process of weaning itself off coal. China’s record-breaking installation of renewable energy has been regarded as one of the more optimistic developments in relation to global action on climate change.