- Tue Jun 22, 2021 10:07 am
#131027
"I'm no scientist, but I have observed that it tends to get hot during the summer."-john"dunderhead"forbes
Well, then let's see what scientists are saying about the heat, shall we?
"It might be tempting to shrug at the scorching weather across large swaths of the West. This just in: It gets hot in the summer. <---[johnforbes was interviewed for this article?]
But this record-setting heat wave's remarkable power, size and unusually early appearance is giving meteorologists and climate experts yet more cause for concern about the routinization of extreme weather in an era of climate change.
These sprawling, persistent high-pressure zones popularly called "heat domes" are relatively common in later summer months. This current system is different.
"It's not only unusual for June, but it is pretty extreme even in absolute terms," says Daniel Swain, climate scientist at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. "It would be a pretty extreme event for August," Swain says, when these typically occur.
This heat dome's reach is remarkable, too: It has set record highs stretching from the Great Plains to coastal California. And these aren't just records for that specific date or month, but in a few spots, they are records for the singularly hottest day in the entire period of record, sometimes stretching back 100 to 150 years. "That's a pretty big deal," Swain says.
"It's unusual in that it's more intense in terms of the maximum temperature," says Alison Bridger, a professor in the Meteorology and Climate Science department at San Jose State University. "And how widespread the impact is."
For example, Palm Springs, Calif., recently hit 123 degrees, equaling its highest recorded temperature.
Las Vegas set a daily record of 114 degrees. Phoenix reached a record 118 degrees, the earliest the city has hit that high a mark. It broke the previous record of 114 set in 2015.
Sacramento, Calif., set a new daily record of 109 degrees. The National Weather Service just extended its excessive heat warning through Sunday night in the Central Valley and parts of northern California.
Denver this week hit 100 for three straight days, the earliest date of such a streak on record, tweeted meteorologist Bob Henson. He noted that all of the 100-degree streaks in Denver's 150 years of climate record keeping have occurred in the last three decades.
And in the Plains, several cities including Omaha, Neb., set records, including a daily record high of 105 degrees. That breaks an Omaha daily record set in 1918.
This current heat dome "fits with climate change ideas, global warming, meaning that it's just a little bit warmer than it would have been last year," Bridger says. "And if we have this next year, it'll be just a little bit warmer again."
It's also coinciding with and worsening record drought across big parts of the West. These two things, Daniel Swain says, are now making each other worse.
"The drought is leading to extremely low soil moisture, which is making it easier for these high pressure systems to generate extreme heat waves because more of the sun's energy is going into heating the atmosphere rather than evaporating nonexistent water in the soil."
And that is only making things hotter and drier.
"That's sort of the vicious cycle of drought and extreme heat in a warming climate," he says.
It's more evidence of human-caused climate change."-NPR
Every day johnforbes loses a bit more of his pathetic excuse for his willful ignorance.
You're welcome, as always, johnny.
- By Clownkicker