Arizona, due to the heat the giant cacti die

The great heat does not let go of the world. And if the month of July enters the annals of meteorological history as the hottest month ever, so much so that Antarctica has lost gigantic blocks of ice, it is the story that comes from Arizona that tells us how hard global warming is hitting. The heat wave is so intense and persistent in Arizona that it is killing even the “saguaros”, the giant cacti typical of the Sonoran desert, not far from Phoenix.
Of course, we are not talking about an area that does not experience heat waves (the desert is just a stone’s throw away) but the real anomaly is that in these parts the mercury column shows no sign of scenes below 40° centigrade.
According to what we read on the CNN website, the Desert Botanical Garden has recorded a death of plants precisely due to the prolonged period of high temperatures. The cactus is a species that notoriously resists heat, however, since there is no temperature even at night, the plants are unable to ‘cool down’, therefore they go into dehydration and are more subject to infections and attacks by insects. “These plants – explained the scientist Tania Hernandez – adapt to the heat but at a certain point they need to cool down and rain is also needed”. Some photos of the Desert Botanical Garden show saguaros with broken trunks and branches on the ground. According to the National Park Service, the US park agency, this cactus species lives between 150 and 175 years, in some cases even exceeding 200 years.
The great heat, however, has long since embraced a large part of the United States. so much so that the authorities have launched a serious alarm. From California to Massachusetts, more than a third of the United States is on a heat alert. The National Weather Service has sounded the alarm for 120 million Americans in 27 states. Abc news reports it. Forecasts have announced temperatures above 37.7 degrees in several central cities from Minnesota to Kansas, but also in the capital Washington. Towards the end of the week, the heat will move to the Northeast, with New York likely to see temperatures above 32 degrees Thursday through Sunday. But the states in the most critical condition are Arizona and Texas. Temperatures of nearly 40 degrees Celsius have been reported in Phoenix for 26 consecutive days and in Maricopa County, which includes the city, there have been 25 deaths since the beginning of the year. Tucson, also in Arizona, reached or exceeded 37.7 degrees for 40 consecutive days, breaking the previous record set in 2013. El Paso, Texas also had near 40 degrees for 40 days in a row. The city’s previous record was 23 days in 1994.