Yeah, It's Winter, But Climatologists Still Obsessed With '21 NW Heat Wave. Alaska Storm, Too

Map depicting the upper level flow in late June, 2021]
depicts the heat dome over the Pacific Northwest and
southwestern Canada that led to extreme, record
shattering heat. Scientists are still studying the
heat wave and its relation to climate change. 

 Since there's such a terrible cold wave smacking much of the nation, let's talk about heat waves.

Or at least one specific heat wave.  

Climatologists are still obsessed with the historic, extreme heat wave that afflicted the Pacific Northwest and southwestern Canada in 2021.

Record-breaking heat waves have become much more common in this era of climate change. 

But this particular heat wave really stands out.  During the relatively rare hot spells in which monthly and all time records, the old marks are almost always broken by only a degree or two.

In that heat wave, temperatures soared to as high as 121 degrees in Lytton, British Columbia, Canada, easily establishing a new all time record high for the entire vast nation. The day after that record was set, most of the town of Lytton burned down in a wildfire.

Before this heat wave the all-time hottest day on record in Portland, Oregon was 107.  In this heat wave, it reached 116 degrees, so that's an incredible nine degrees above the previous record.

Also, before 2021, Seattle had only experienced 100 degree temperatures on three occasions. Then, in this heat wave, it was above 100 on three consecutive days, including the all-time record high of 107.

The heat wave killed hundreds of people in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.

Given how utterly jaw-dropping this heat wave was, you can see why climatologists have been studying and picking apart this heat wave ever since. 

According to Axios:

"In the most comprehensive analysis to date of what made the heat wave so extreme, scientists ruled out the possibility that this was a 'black swan' event, which is unpredictable and unlikely to recur.

Instead, the new study in Nature Climate Change shows that amplifying feedbacks between factors such as unusually dry soils and a highly contorted jet stream added to the effects of a long-term climate change.

The wavy jet stream pattern, itself tied to climate change, helped give rise to a record-strong heat dome that parked itself over the British Columbia and the Northwest U.S. in early summer."

If we were back in the 1950s, a heat wave like this would have been considered absolutely impossible in the Pacific Northwest. 

As Axios reports, because of climate change and its feedback loops, the chances of another heat wave like this is now considered a one in every 200 year event. And if the climate warms by a total of 2 degrees Celsius, then the heat wave would be considered a one in every ten year event. 

Other scientists say the heat wave was in large part bad luck. Weather systems and trends got together in precisely the right way to unleash a horrible heat wave. But climate change boosted the temperatures even further than they otherwise would have gotten.

The 2021 Northwest heat wave wasn't a one-off. Other weird, unexpected things keep cropping up that seem to have been giving a boost by climate change. 

Up in Alaska, meanwhile, former Typhoon Merbok slammed into the state's west coast in September, bringing record high storm surges and immense coastal flooding.

The storm hit before the seas along Alaska's west coast began to freeze.  The ice would have offered some protection. The ground hadn't yet frozen, either, so it could erode more easily.

To make matters worse, as Yale Climate Connections reports, the ocean waters in the Pacific were warmer than average, very likely due to climate change. This allowed the typhoon to exist closer to Alaska than it otherwise would have And it allowed the storm to maintain much of its strength even after it transitioned to a powerful non-tropical storm. 

This is similar situation that Atlantic Canada faced with Hurricane Fiona this year. Unusually warm water off the eastern Canadian coast allowed Fiona to keep more of its strength than it otherwise would have by the time it made landfall.  

The examples in this post as to how climate change can affect weather events in surprising ways ought to worry all of us. What fresh hell that's beyond our imagination will climate change on us here in Vermont?  Maybe nothing, maybe something mildly weird, maybe something catastrophic.

It's enough to make one nervous, though.