Well met, curious mind!, sit tight and grab your hats because we’re going on a wild and hot journey across the globe. Imagine you’re in a super sizzling summer, so hot that your ice cream melts faster than you can say “chocolate chip”!

That’s exactly what happened in Europe, Africa, and Asia in June and July 2022.

Global Scorcher

• Let’s start our tour in Europe. Picture this: You’re in your second round of a very hot game of tag with the sun, that’s what we call a “heatwave”. Some parts of Europe experienced two heatwaves, so it was like playing a double round of the hot game. Sadly, this scorching heat also started several fires, some of them got so big that they leaped from one country to another. It was like an out-of-control campfire, but a lot scarier.
• In Portugal, it got so hot that the thermometer almost burst, reaching 45 degrees Celsius! They even had to call in firefighters to handle 14 fires. Half of Portugal was put on high alert, like in a superhero movie. Even the icy mountains in Italy weren’t safe. The heat caused a glacier to start melting. Imagine, an ice cube the size of a mountain turning into a waterfall.
• The weather forecasters in the United Kingdom had to warn people about the extreme heat. You know when your mom says it’s too hot to play outside? Well, it was like that, but for the whole country!
• Now, let’s hop on our imaginary plane and visit North Africa. Tunisia, a country there, felt the sun’s fury with a heatwave and fires. It was so hot, their wheat plants, the ones we use for bread, got damaged. The capital city, Tunis, felt like a giant oven with a temperature of 48 degrees Celsius, breaking all their old records!
• In Iran, the sun turned the heat dial up to a toasty 52 degrees Celsius in late June and kept the heat coming through July. That’s like standing in the middle of a desert!
• Finally, our last stop, Asia. Picture this: It was so hot in China that the roads started to crumble, the sticky tar melted, and roof tiles popped off like popcorn! The weather station in Shanghai, which has been around since before your great-great-grandma was born, saw the highest temperature ever, at a sweaty 40.9 degrees Celsius. The mix of hot days and warm nights made it pretty tough for people.
• So there you have it, readers! The tale of the great heatwaves of 2022. It taught us something important too: Our planet is getting warmer, and we need to do something about it. We might not have ice powers like Elsa from Frozen, but if we all work together, we can make a big difference. So, let’s promise to take care of our beautiful Earth, because it’s the only home we’ve got!