What is outside the envelope of natural variation? How are we framing risk?

Global hazards in July, according to a NOAA report:

Severe drought plagued Bolivia, killing crops and livestock.

Three massive wildfires raged across Southern California.

Record high temperatures and sparse rainfall in Russia, killing 40% of the grain harvest, creating huge wildfires, oppressive smog, and causing many cases of heat stroke.

Hundreds of maximum high and minimum high temperatures were broken from North Carolina (U.S.) to Quebec (Canada). On July 5th, Montfort Hospital in Ottawa, Canada reported the highest number of hospital visits ever recorded in a single day.

On the 5th, temperatures in Beijing reached 105.1°F (40.6°C)—the highest recorded temperature in July for the city since national records began in 1951. That same day Beijing reported its largest single-day water consumption since tap water use began in 1910.

While heat waves were affecting various regions in the Northern Hemisphere, frigid polar air from Antarctica gripped parts of southern South America, including Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile, southern Brazil, and eastern Peru.

By the beginning of July, heavy monsoon rains triggered floods and landslides in both southern (Kerala) and northeastern (Assam) India.

Torrential rainfall in northwestern China during the first week in July killed 29 people and damaged more than 6,300 homes in parts of Qinghai Province. Across the country in southern China, at least 118 people were killed and nearly 1.1 million had to be relocated due to flooding and landslides across nine provinces during the first two weeks in July.

Following one of the worst droughts on record, according to local meteorologists, 5.1 inches (130 mm) of rain fell over Hanoi, Vietnam within a three-hour period on July 13th.

Torrential rainfall on July 13th led to flooding that killed seven people in Saudi Arabia. Heavy rains on the 14th–16th also led to flooding and landslides that killed 26 in northwestern Yemen.

At least eight people were killed and seven were missing as heavy rains on July 14th–16th lashed central and western Japan. Towns and farmland were submerged under water for days due to the downpours. In Shobara, 2.5 inches (64 mm) of rain fell in one hour, breaking the hourly rainfall record for the city.

Three days of rain in Burkina Faso left 20,000 homeless after floods swept through the eastern portion of the country. In northern Cameroon, heavy rainfall and strong winds left eight people dead and 4,000 homeless. Experts reported that the heavy rains this season was causing a June cholera outbreak that had already killed 77 people.

Up to 12 inches (305 mm) of rain fell across parts of eastern Iowa, northwestern Illinois, and southeastern Wisconsin during a 48-hour period on July 22nd–24th. The Lake Delhi Dam in Iowa failed as floodwater from the Maquoketa River bore a 30-foot wide hole in the earthen structure…Dozens of homes and businesses were affected and damages were initially estimated by a local official to exceed $34 million U.S. dollars.

During the last week of July, heavy rainfall associated with the annual monsoon in Pakistan brought a deluge of water, creating extreme flooding, particularly in the northwest regions of the country. Over 12 inches (302mm) of rain fell between July 28th and 30th in the Peshawar province…20+ million displaced, crops and wells destroyed, more than three million children at risk of diseases carried by contaminated water and insects.

Written by NICK.