Media reported that the temperature in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, rose to a record high on Tuesday morning, reaching 58.5 degrees Celsius, as the intense heat wave continues to suffocate the country.
According to data from the National Institute of Meteorology (Inmet) in the country, a mass of dry and hot air covering two-thirds of Brazilian territory is the cause of the heat wave that has afflicted the country, since last November 8, and will continue until Friday, November 17.
In this context, the National Institute of Meteorology issued a warning of a “high risk” of a heat wave affecting a large part of the South American country.
The authorities said that the thermometer reached 39 degrees Celsius, but that does not express the intensity of the heat, as the feeling of heat in Rio de Janeiro reached 58.5 degrees Celsius. This is a measure of how hot or cold the skin feels, depending on humidity, temperature, and wind speed.
This record high represents “the highest temperature sensation since the beginning of records” in 2014, exceeding the highest levels recorded last February, which reached 58 degrees Celsius.
The authorities placed 15 states in the southeast, the center-west, and part of the north of the country, in addition to the capital, Brasilia, on alert by the National Meteorological Institute due to extreme heat.
Unusually high temperatures, about 5 degrees Celsius above the seasonal average, have caused record levels of energy consumption, especially due to the use of air conditioners, since the weekend and this will continue until Friday, according to estimates by the National Institute of Meteorology in a bulletin issued on Sunday. Monday.
Extreme heat also hit residents of São Paulo, with the thermometer rising to an average of 37.3 degrees Celsius yesterday afternoon, with humidity dropping to 21%, according to the Climate Emergency Management Center.
It is estimated that air humidity ranges between 20% and 12%, which entails a greater risk of dehydration, burns and sunstroke due to high environmental exposure.
It is worth noting that as a result of the phenomenon known as "El Niño", Brazil has suffered in recent months from the impact of severe weather conditions, with a historic drought that emptied rivers in the Amazon region and heavy rains accompanied by hurricanes in the south of the country.
In addition, fires mainly caused by human activity in the Pantanal region, the world's largest wetland, were exacerbated in November by exceptional drought.
Last May, World Weather Attribution, whose scientists study the relationship between extreme weather events and global warming, said such extreme heat was “almost impossible without climate change.”
Archaeologists: Ancient Eastern giants were larger than European giants
Archaeologists still find huge stone axes hundreds of thousands of years old, indicating the presence of giants.
Scientists do not yet know exactly why our ancestors needed such huge tools.
During the excavations conducted in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at the archaeological site of Al-Qarah, where ancient humans lived, archaeologists discovered a huge stone ax with two faces (biface). This is the name given to long pieces, chiseled and sharpened on both sides. Our ancestors carried such large axes in their hands to slaughter animals, remove their skins, chop down trees, and so on.
The Middle Eastern artifact is 250,000 years old. But the age of the artifact did not surprise archaeologists, because they had previously found something older than that, but what was strange was the size of the ax, which was more than half a meter (513 mm) long. It can only be used by a giant human.
Archaeologists from Saudi Arabia did not make any assumptions. However, they only promise to dig more and find other large tools to investigate and find out their purpose. It is not unlikely that they will find themselves able to find out who “worked” with a giant ax and what power it possessed.
But scientists from the Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles, found themselves in awe when they recently found two giant stone axes during excavations in a hill in the Medway Valley in Kent, England. It turns out that the two English axes are 300 thousand years old, and are about 30 centimeters (296 mm) long.
"At the moment we don't know why ancestors needed such large tools," admitted Letty Ingre, the archaeologist who supervised the excavations. But she assumed that huge axes were not for work but to symbolize something, for example, a symbol of strength, skill and perhaps authority.
As for enthusiasts who admired the huge tools of ancient peoples, they consider them evidence of the existence of giants. They suggest that the Middle Eastern giants (6 meters tall) were larger than the European giants (4 metres), because their axes were larger.