![]() ![]() The late June heat wave took a painful toll ( SN: 6/29/21), killing several hundred people - “almost certainly” an underestimate, the researchers say. Those heat waves could be another 1.3 degrees C hotter, the researchers found. Once global warming increases to 2 degrees C, future heat waves may become even more intense ( SN: 12/17/18). That warming, the researchers determined, increased the intensity of the heat wave by about 2 degrees C. The team then used 21 different climate simulations of temperatures to analyze the intensity of such a heat wave in the region with and without the influence of greenhouse gas warming.Įarth has already warmed by about 1.2 degrees C relative to preindustrial times. In the current study, 27 researchers focused on how the observed temperatures from June 27 to June 29 compared with annual maximum temperatures over the last 50 years for locations across the northwestern United States and southwestern Canada. Van Oldenborgh and University of Oxford climate scientist Friederike Otto founded the group in 2014 to conduct quick analyses of extreme events such as the 2020 Siberian heat wave ( SN: 7/15/20). ![]() The observations were also several degrees higher than the upper temperature limits predicted by most climate simulations for the heat waves, even taking global warming into account.Ĭoming just about a week after the heat wave broke, the new study is the latest real-time climate attribution effort by scientists affiliated with the World Weather Attribution network. ![]() It’s that the observed temperatures were so far outside of historical records, breaking those records by as much as 5 degrees C in many places - and a full month before usual peak temperatures for the region. It’s not just that numerous temperature records were broken, van Oldenborgh said. As emissions and global temperatures continue to rise, such extreme heat events could happen in the region as often as every five to 10 years by the end of the century. I don’t know what English word covers it.”Ĭlimate change due to greenhouse gas emissions made the region’s heat wave at least 150 times more likely to occur, the team found. In fact, the temperatures were so extreme - Portland, Ore., reached a staggering 47° Celsius (116° Fahrenheit) on June 29, while Seattle surged to 42° C (108° F) - that initial analyses suggested they were impossible even with climate change, Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, a climate scientist with the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute in De Bilt, said at a news conference to announce the team’s findings. The deadly heat wave that baked the Pacific Northwest in late June would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused climate change, an international team of scientists announced July 7. ![]()
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