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| The unprecedented heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and Canada in late June could not have happened without climate change, scientists concluded. And now, another heat wave looms in the western part of the continent. |
Not so out west, where conditions have remained pretty hot in most places even though the worst of the unprecedented late June heat wave has waned.
Now, it appears the heat is building back up in the western United States and southwestern Canada. Though this next heat wave won't be as intense at the last one, there will still probably be quite a few daily record highs broken.
A punishing, ongoing drought continues in the western United States and in British Columbia, Canada. Wildfires are already raging out on control. Humans and dry lightning strikes are setting new fires pretty much daily.
The long-lasting heat will further dry things out and encourage more fires. There's really no end in sight.
While the western heat will be widespread, it'll be centered a bit further south than last time. Instead of the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia being the most torrid spots, Nevada, California and Arizona look like the worst spots.
It's pretty much always hot in the summer in these areas, but this heat will be intense, even by their standards.
Death Valley could make it to 130 degrees, which is pretty close the hottest on record for the entire Earth.
Want to head up to northern Arizona's mountains to escape the desert heat? Good luck with that. Temperatures at elevations as high as 4,000 feet above sea level could still flirt with 110 degrees, note the Washington Post.
In California's Central Valley, temperatures are forecast to be near 110 this weekend. Sacramento, California is usually in the low 90s this time of year, but will be in the 105-110 degree range over the upcoming weekend.
Further north, some of the places that had the worst of the heat in late June will still broil. Spokane, Washington could reach 100 degrees over the weekend.
Spokane's normal high temperature this time of year is in the low 80s, similar to that in Vermont. But Tuesday was their 14th consecutive day at 90 or better, and each of the next seven days at least are forecast to top that 90 degree mark.
Meanwhile, that crushing late June heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia could not have possibly happened without a boost from climate change, scientists have concluded.
"An international team of 27 climate researchers who are part of the World Weather Attribution netword managed to analyze the data in just eight days.
Unsurprisingly, given the quick turnaround, the research has not yet been peer-reviewed However, the scientists use well-established methods accepted by top journals.
They used 21 climate models to estimate how much climate change influenced the heat experienced in the area around the cities of Seattle, Portland and Vancouver.
They compared the climate as it is today, with the world as it would be without human-induced warming."
The result was this, the BBC said, quoting co-author Dr. Friederike Otto, from the University of Oxford:
"Without the additional greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, in the statistics that we have available with our models, and also the statistical models based on observations, such an event just does not occur."
At least it didn't, until climate change came along.
The disconcerting thing about the whole thing is this: Scientists aren't sure whether the extreme heat wave was an extraordinarily rare event that would have happened anyway, but was made worse by climate change - OR - did we cross some sort of threshold where heat waves like this one become more common.
By "this one" I mean one that broke all time records not by one or two degrees, but by as many as ten degrees Fahrenheit.
Makes you worry about the next heat wave that will inevitably hit your home town, doesn't it?
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