of 2010 (or both), but one thing seems certain: it's going to get worse before it gets better.
...these grim statistics suggest
that in Moscow alone, the Great Russian Heat Wave of 2010 has likely
killed at least 7,000 people so far. A plot of the departure of July
2010 temperatures from average (Figure 1) shows that the area of Russia
experiencing incredible heat is vast, and that regions southeast of
Moscow have the hottest, relative to average. Moscow is the largest city
in Russia, with a population just over ten million, but there are
several other major cities in the heat wave region. These include Saint
Petersburg, Russia's 2nd most populous city (4.6 million), and Nizhny
Novgorod, Russia's 5th most populous city (1.3 million people.) Thus,
the Russian population affected by extreme heat is at least double the
population of Moscow, and the death toll in Russia from the 2010 heat
wave is probably at least 15,000, and may be much higher.
[...]
I expect that by the time the Great Russian
Heat Wave of 2010 is over, it may rival the 2003 European heat wave as
the deadliest heat wave in world history.
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