Highest Ever Temperature Recorded In Finnish North

Region is seeing a massive decline in snow, ice and the ecosystem.

A weather observatory in the Finnish municipality of Utsjoki has recorded the highest ever temperatures for the region.

Lapland under extreme heat right now. 34.3°C at Banak, Norway 🇳🇴 This level of heat has never been observed above 70 degrees north in Europe before.

Scandinavia has been in the oven for a while. A very hot June followed by a hot start to July. Widely 10-15°C hotter than average. pic.twitter.com/dYLHOMrhLQ

— Scott Duncan (@ScottDuncanWX) July 5, 2021

Ilmatieteen laitos recorded an insanely hot 34.7 Celsius for the area, prompting fears of ecosystem collapse and climate breakdown.

Last year, forest fires threatened thousands of lives damaging much of the woodland region of Siberia, as temperatures rose to astonishing levels not seen for years. It is expected that the temperature increase was made more likely by climate change, with many scientists beginning to worry about the potential impacts we will have to live with.

In a tweet, the local observatory said: “A new heat record of 33.5 degrees has been measured at Kevo, Utsjoki. The reading may still rise as the day progresses. This is known to be the second highest temperature measured in Lapland. Inari Thule is 34.7 degrees from 1914.”

Utsjoen Kevolla on mitattu havaintoaseman uusi lämpöennätys 33,5 astetta. Lukema saattaa vielä päivän edetessä nousta.
Tämä on tiettävästi toiseksi korkein Lapissa mitattu lämpötila. Ykkössijalla on Inarin Thulen 34,7 astetta vuodelta 1914. pic.twitter.com/oUB2d07keZ

— Ilmatieteen laitos (@meteorologit) July 5, 2021

Researcher and professor Michael Reeder, who studies climate sciences, attributed the extreme heat in Finland to tropical lows and linked destructive heatwaves in the United States to the same phenomena. He said:

“It’s like plucking a guitar string. The disturbance propagated along the jet stream,”…“It gets to North America, it (amplified) and produced a big high pressure system in the middle part of the atmosphere.”

“So from that perspective, the high temperatures over Scandinavia are directly linked to what happened in North America.”

Such events are becoming widely expected each year, and its normalization is becoming a problem moving forward as incidents of extreme heat, floods and forest fire lose momentum in popular news outlets. It is framed as just another weather phenomenon and its sense of urgency is being lost along with concern for the future.

Photograph: NASA