Yearender 2024: A world altered by climate change | IN PICS
Yearender 2024: A world altered by climate change | IN PICS
After heat records were smashed and a torrent of extreme weather events rocked countless countries in 2023, some climate scientists believed that the waning of the El Nino weather pattern could mean 2024 would be slightly cooler. It didn’t happen that way.
Pools of water caused by heavy rainfall between sand dunes are visible in the desert town of Merzouga, Morocco.
2/10Image Source : AP
From Mexico to Pakistan and beyond, high temperatures hit people hard. Unable to find relief, some sweated profusely while others ended up hospitalised.
3/10Image Source : AP
When heavy rains led to massive flooding in Uruguay and Brazil, residents were forced from their homes. In both of these places, most people likely returned and were able to rebuild their lives.
Advertisement
4/10Image Source : AP
Throughout the year, there was way too much water in some places and not enough in others, increasingly common as climate change alters natural weather patterns. In the Sahara Desert in Morocco, heavy rain left sand dunes with pools of water. By contrast, the Amazon region in South America, normally lush as a largely tropical area, experienced severe drought.
5/10Image Source : AP
Water is central for humans and animals, but it can also take lives and leave a path of destruction. It did both in 2024. The scenes were shocking: students in India using rope to cross a flooded street, a little girl in Cuba floating in a container and Nigerians wading through floodwaters after a dam collapsed in the wake of heavy rains.
6/10Image Source : AP
Around the world, numerous storms unleashed powerful winds and dumped large amounts of water. The result: buildings and homes that looked like they had been hit with a wrecking ball, clothes and other household goods caked in mud and scattered on the ground, and residents walking through floodwaters.
Advertisement
7/10Image Source : AP
More than 2 billion people around the world don’t have access to safely managed drinking water, according to the United Nations, a grim reality experienced in so many places.
8/10Image Source : AP
As the end of 2024 approached, the arrival of winter in the Northern Hemisphere meant relief from the heat in the form of cold temperatures and idyllic scenes like snow-frosted trees. But there were also reminders that global warming had already altered Earth so much that climate-driven disasters, such as raging wildfires even during winter months, are never far off.
9/10Image Source : AP
For all the destruction that climate change caused in 2024, mother nature showed off its beauty. That was on display at Churchill, Manitoba, a northern Canadian town that revels in its unofficial title as the polar bear capital of the world.
10/10Image Source : AP
Pilgrims use umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun as they gather outside Nimrah Mosque to offer noon prayers in Arafat, during the annual Hajj, near the holy city of Mecca
