Aug 13, 2026
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Add us on GoogleWhile summer is as sweltering as ever in the United States, other parts of the world are reaching new levels of suffering this year.
South Korea is seeing record heat that is having a devastating effect on local agriculture, for instance, with temperatures in the southeastern city of Yangsan hitting 42.5C (108.5 Fahrenheit) earlier this month. That’s the highest level the country has seen since it began recording weather observations in 1904.
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To date, the heat wave has been blamed for 31 human deaths along with over 900,000 livestock and 1.4 million farmed fish. Even potato farmers are feeling the impact. In a farm region 80 miles outside of Seoul, farmers say the potatoes came out of the ground soft and collapsing “like boiled potatoes” as the sun heated the ground.
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Cruelly hot
Things aren’t much better in Japan, where the country’s weather agency has had to devise a new term for temperatures that top 40 degrees Celsius (104F). That designation—“kokushobi” or “cruelly hot day”—was used for the first time this year. It’s so hot that three lions died of heatstroke at a Tokyo zoo.
The intense heat has also complicated recovery efforts in the Kumamoto Prefecture in southern Japan, where a 7.1-magnitude earthquake last month killed at least 39 people and injured 170. Over 40,000 households in that area still lack water and thousands of people are sleeping in shelters or their cars in case of aftershocks. Some of those people are dying of heat stroke because of the extreme temperatures.
Hong Kong, meanwhile, posted its highest temperature since 1884 recently, topping 98 degrees. That’s nine degrees above the typical average this time of year.
Scientists say the record highs would be “virtually impossible” without global warming. Without that, they say a heatwave of this magnitude would occur once every 10,000 years.
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Not just Asia
The extreme heat isn’t limited to Asian countries. Spain is expected to top 104 degrees on Thursday, and London and Paris are both expecting temperatures north of 100 degrees.
That will be the fifth heat wave of the year for Europe. The extreme temperatures have sparked wildfires, caused water shortages and taken a toll on tourism, which many cities depend on at this time of year. (The majority of France is currently under some form of water use restrictions.)
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While potatoes aren’t boiling in the ground in those areas, the impact on the agriculture business is still severe. Italy’s largest agricultural trade association estimates climate-related damages have reached $3.5 billion so far this year.
Agricultural output across the continent is expected to fall by 3% to 7%.
Things have gotten so bad that earlier this summer, some mortuaries in Paris became overwhelmed and were forced to turn away bodies from funeral homes and grieving relatives.
“Families are suffering,” Zouhaeir Hertelli, a mortuary owner, told PBS. “We have no solution to offer them, because the funeral homes are full. So we are deeply affected, we have empathy for them, but there’s nothing we can offer. We are really facing a problem, a big problem.”
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Chris Morris is a veteran journalist with more than 35 years of experience at many of the internet's biggest news outlets. In addition to his activities as a writer, reporter and editor, Chris is also a frequent panel moderator and speaker at major conferences, including CES and South by Southwest.
