Surviving the Japanese summer is always like running a gauntlet. First, you have 梅雨 (tsuyu, rainy season), which can last for a drizzly four weeks of 小雨 (kosame, light rain) to eight-plus weeks of 豪雨 (gōu, downpours) like this year. After that come 猛暑 (mōsho, heat waves), where temperatures regularly blaze past an extremely sticky 35 degrees Celsius. At the end of it, you’re rewarded for your hardiness with a series of 台風 (taifū, typhoons).
And while we all have no choice but to talk about the daily extremes of the Japanese climate, it’s important to level up your Japanese vocabulary to be able to discuss another key factor at play: 地球温暖化 (chikyū ondanka, global warming). The data shows that 地球温暖化 is making weather matters worse, and Japanese summers more miserable.
The basics are well-established. 地球温暖化が進むにつれ (chikyū ondanka ga susumu ni tsure, as global warming advances), 温度が上がっていき (ondo ga agatte-iki, temperatures continues to rise) and 降水量が増えていきます (kōsuiryō ga fuete-ikimasu, the amount of precipitation continues to increase). Adding that いきます to the end of the te-form of a verb means that that verb (in this case, to rise or to increase), will keep on verb-ing into the future. You can also express the reverse, that a verb has verb-ed up until now, by adding きました to a verb’s te-form. For example, 札幌の雪の量が減ってきました (Sapporo no yuki no ryō ga hette-kimashita, the amount of snow in Sapporo has decreased), which is certainly true in the past 10 years.
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