Climate expert Professor Guy Midgley says a combination of factors has led to the current heat wave and weather conditions in the country.
This follows a warning by the South African Weather Service for heatwave conditions in parts of the country this week.
Affected provinces include Gauteng, the Free State, North West, Northern Cape, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, and KwaZulu-Natal.
The extremely hot conditions are expected until at least Friday.
Midgley says this is due to the climate temperature regime shifting higher.
He says, “It’s the well-known El Niño effect, which tends to lead to warmer oceans and it’s the long-term warming due to greenhouse gases. Every El Niño is different, but what you tend to find is the warm records, more and more hot records are being broken and fewer and fewer cold records are being broken.”
“So the planet’s temperature regime is shifting higher and higher, and we’re also seeing a rise in atmospheric methane, which is a very powerful greenhouse gas. On top of it all, we have issues relating to heating caused by better control of pollution,” Midgley adds.
VIDEO | Heatwave warning in Gauteng:
