Heatwaves
Global heating from humanity’s burning of fossil fuels is leading to extreme temperatures and dangerous heatwaves that are putting our health, and even our survival at risk. Prolonged heat waves lead to droughts, drinking water shortages, crop failures, and increase the risk of wildfires. If people don’t have access to shelter and AC, heatstroke can cause damage to vital organs and lead to chronic health issues and even death.
We are already hitting temperature highs that climate scientists didn’t expect to occur until 2050. We need to stop burning fossil fuels in order to avoid runaway heating, increasingly severe heatwaves, and what climate scientists call an uninhabitable hothouse Earth.
Read a roundup of the headlines:
“Heatwaves occur when there is high air pressure at ground level. The high pressure is a result of air sinking through the atmosphere. As the air descends, the pressure increases, compressing the air and heating it up, just like in a bike pump.
Sinking air has a big warming effect: the temperature increases by 1 degree for every 100 metres the air is pushed downwards.
High-pressure systems are an intrinsic part of an atmospheric Rossby wave, and they travel along with the wave. Heatwaves occur when the high-pressure systems stop moving and affect a particular region for a considerable time.”
PBS, How is climate change affecting heatwaves? Here’s what we need to study
“They predict that in three decades, more than 100 million Americans will live in an “extreme heat belt” where at least one day a year, the heat index temperature will exceed 125° Fahrenheit (52° Celsius) — the top level of the National Weather Service’s heat index, or the extreme danger level. (The index combines temperature and humidity to arrive at how it feels when you go outside.)”
Bloomberg, Much of the US Will Be an ‘Extreme Heat Belt’ by the 2050s
“Heatwaves will become so extreme in certain regions of the world within decades that human life there will be unsustainable, the United Nations and the Red Cross said Monday.
Heatwaves are predicted to "exceed human physiological and social limits" in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and south and southwest Asia, with extreme events triggering "large-scale suffering and loss of life", the organisations said
Heatwave catastrophes this year in countries like Somalia and Pakistan foreshadow a future with deadlier, more frequent, and more intense heat-related humanitarian emergencies, they warned in a joint report.
The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) released the report in advance of next month's UN's COP27 climate change summit in Egypt.”
France24, Heatwaves to make certain regions uninhabitable within decades: UN, Red Cross
“A record-breaking heat wave has baked the West for days -- setting record high temperatures, fueling destructive wildfires and threatening rolling power shutoffs in California -- and it could last even longer due to the effects of a strengthening hurricane along Mexico's Pacific coast.
How extreme heat can kill and how you can stay safe
"We are now heading into the worst part of it -- the risk of outages is real," California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a tweet Tuesday, adding that the temperatures in the state are "unprecedented." The heat wave will be the hottest and longest on record in September for California, he said.
Pacific Gas & Electric, the nation's largest utility, has notified about 525,000 customers to prepare for potential rotating outages, and California residents have been urged to conserve power in hopes of avoiding them. The California Independent System Operator, which manages most of the state's power grid, issued a Flex Alert for the 8th consecutive day Wednesday, calling on residents to set thermostats to 78 degrees or higher, avoid using major appliances and turn off all unnecessary lights between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m.”
“China recorded its highest temperatures and one of its lowest levels of rainfall in 61 years during a two-month summer heatwave that caused forest fires, damaged crops and hit power supplies, the national meteorological agency said.
The average national temperature in August, 22.4C, was 1.2C higher than the seasonal norm, while average rainfall fell 23% to 82mm, the third lowest since records began in 1961, according to Xiao Chan, the vice-director of China’s national meteorological administration.
He told reporters that 267 weather stations across China recorded their highest temperatures in history last month.
The heatwave between mid-June to the end of August was the “most severe” since records began in terms of duration, extent, intensity and impact, said Xiao.
The extreme temperature caused widespread drought in regions along the Yangtze River, south-western China and east and central Tibet. The persistent heat and drought caused forest fires and affected agricultural production, water resources and power supply, Xiao said. The Yangtze is the world’s third largest river, providing drinking water to more than 400 million Chinese people, and is the most vital waterway to China’s economy.”
The Guardian, China reports ‘most severe’ heatwave and third driest summer on record
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