What kind of weather would kill more than 10,000 people in a month?
When people burn fossil fuels, such as oil, coal, etc., or cut down forests and burn them, they produce a large amount of carbon dioxide, that is, greenhouse gases. These greenhouse gases are highly transparent to visible light from solar radiation. It is highly absorbent to the long-wave radiation emitted by the earth and can strongly absorb the infrared rays in the ground radiation, causing the earth's temperature to rise, which is the greenhouse effect. Global warming will redistribute global precipitation, melt glaciers and permafrost, and raise sea levels, etc., which not only endangers the balance of natural ecosystems, but also threatens human survival.
Today, the trend of global warming is very obvious. If this topic was mentioned ten years ago, people might still question it, but today, this phenomenon has become an indisputable fact.
In the past, people only needed a fan to spend the summer, but now, they must have air conditioners to help them escape the heat safely. The "greenhouse effect" faced by mankind has become unprecedentedly serious. However, if compared from a historical perspective, today's summer is not the hottest summer in history. It was the summer of the eighth year of Qianlong's reign, and more than 10,000 people died from the heat in the capital alone. As we all know, there were no measurement symbols such as degrees Celsius at that time. So, how did the ancients record the hottest summer? What do the relevant historical documents say?
The temperature concept of degrees Celsius has a history of only about a hundred years. Therefore, it is difficult for us to use today's temperature measurement standards to estimate ancient summer temperatures. From the perspective of modern meteorology, a temperature of not less than 35 degrees Celsius is considered a high temperature. High temperature weather for many consecutive days is called a "heat wave". This phenomenon was also called a "heat disaster" in ancient times. In ancient times, the most common word people used to describe the hot summer was "July Fire". This expression first came from the "Book of Songs". In ancient times, this expression referred to astronomical phenomena. Nowadays, most people generally understand it as "heat". "Flowing Fire in July" is a concept in the weekly calendar. The weekly calendar is different from the lunar calendar. The first month in the weekly calendar is November in the lunar calendar, that is, it is exactly two months earlier than the lunar calendar. Therefore, what the ancients called "July" is actually The above refers to June and July in summer. "The Book of Songs" says: "Fire flows in July, and clothes are given in September." It can be seen that although the summer temperature in the Western Zhou Dynasty was very high, autumn clothes were needed in only two months, and the temperature difference between seasons was huge. Although the Book of Songs was compiled in the Zhou Dynasty, the creation time of most of the poems can be dated to the Yin and Shang Dynasties.
From the Yin and Shang Dynasties to the Spring and Autumn Period, the Western Zhou Dynasty only experienced a short cold period. The summer temperature at that time was about two degrees higher than today. According to Chinese meteorological data, the proportion of heat disasters in history is not high, and frost disasters account for about one percent of the total. However, from the Sui and Tang Dynasties to the early Northern Song Dynasty, there were more extreme high temperatures in summer. According to the "Old Book of Tang" records, in 798 AD, there was a severe drought in the summer, and all the wheat planted by the people withered. In 908 AD, the phenomenon of "hyperactive sun" appeared in Houliang, which is what people call "poisonous sun" today.
During the Song and Song Dynasties, the three-day scorching heat occurred more frequently. For example, the Song poem "Two Poems about Futian" wrote: "The heat has been scorching for ten days, and the scorching heat is coming freely." It can be seen that the summer at that time was Extremely hot and unbearable. Another example is what Chen Zao mentioned in his "The Beginning of Autumn Day": "The heat is like a scorching official", which also indirectly explained the abnormally high temperature in the summer at that time. In the eighth year of Jiading, an unprecedented "heat disaster" occurred in the Southern Song Dynasty, which affected a wide range of areas. Today's Jiangsu, Hunan, Anhui and other places were affected to varying degrees.
The so-called house leaks coincided with continuous rain, and there happened to be a severe drought that year. The food harvests in various places were poor, and the people were in dire straits. The "May Day" mentioned in the "History of the Song Dynasty" refers to this time. ?Heat disaster?. "燠" means warmth, and the reason why historical records call it "大燠" is because it was too hot at that time. Because the drought affected a wide range of areas, water prices in the Southern Song Dynasty continued to rise. According to the "History of the Song Dynasty": At that time, buying a glass of water cost dozens of yuan, about ten yuan, and it is still a luxury product now. Water was as expensive as oil, so poor people naturally had no money to buy water. Therefore, many people died of thirst in the Southern Song Dynasty.
In 1743 AD, China experienced its hottest summer in history. According to the "Comprehensive Collection of Chinese Meteorological Records for Three Thousand Years": This "heat disaster" affected almost half of China. The high temperatures in Beijing, Hebei, Shanxi and other regions were abnormal, and many pedestrians died from heat on the roads. According to the "Tianjin County Chronicle": That year, May was bitterly hot and gold flowed from the top of the mast. The thick walls also became hot, and many people died of hunger and thirst. "Qingcheng County Chronicle" also recorded this matter: "There was a severe drought for thousands of miles, all the appliances were hot, and there were so many passers-by that they died from the heat." ?
It can be seen that almost all of North China suffered from the "scorching heat" at that time. "Xu Donghua Lu" even used the word "weishu" to describe the high temperature weather at that time.
That summer, Song Junrong, a missionary from France, happened to be in Beijing. He has a deep understanding of this unprecedented "heat disaster" in China. Song Junrong wrote in his letter to Paris: Even the old people who have lived in Beijing for decades have never seen such a scorching summer as in 1743. Because of the abnormal high temperature, many poor and obese people died suddenly. ?
According to official statistics from the Qing court, in July 1743 alone, more than 10,000 people died from the heat in the suburbs of Beijing. Of course, if other regions in China are included, the actual number of heat fatalities may be even higher.
The successive deaths and injuries once triggered social panic. Because the situation was critical, Emperor Qianlong had to order officials to distribute medicine on the streets to reduce the number of people dying from the heat.
According to the conversion analysis of our country’s climate research experts, the average daily temperature in July during the eighth year of Qianlong exceeded 40 degrees Celsius. Among them, the highest temperature on July 25 reached 44.4 degrees Celsius. The temperature still remains at the top of the extreme heat record list. Even the extreme high temperature weather that occurred in North China in 1942 was only 42.6 degrees Celsius, which was still lower than the high temperature weather in the eighth year of Qianlong's reign.
In addition, as the current emperor, Qianlong was too hot in the cold palace. As a result, he even wrote a poem called "Hot" because of the sweltering heat:
We have known that it is cold in the morning and evening in the mountains, but now it is autumn again.
Why is the afternoon heat a lonely bet? It is suspected that Jin Guan Rang Mo Guang.
Think of the shadow falling by the tung leaf garden, and feel the sound of poplar trees under the grass and insects.
Nongzhao is like a lawsuit, but it turns out that it is rarely paid.