Ninety percent of Americans will experience temperatures of 90 degrees or above this week, as a record-breaking heat wave begins its onslaught throughout the central and eastern United States.
This particular heat wave is notably heedless of any political affiliation, as residents from Oklahoma to Massachusetts will be impacted by it. The “heat index” (how the temperature “feels” to the human body when the air temperature is combined with the relative humidity) during this particular heat wave will range from 100-110 degrees “from the Plains to the Great Lakes and the Middle Atlantic to NYC,” according to BAM Weather Meteorologist Ryan Maue.
Additionally, 123 new records for the warmest daily low temperature are forecast to be broken or tied this week, according to the National Weather Service. But eventually, possibly within a week, those temperatures are expected to revert back to their seasonal norms, at least for a little while, bringing people some relief from the searing, debilitating heat.
In two or three decades, however, those temperatures will not revert. They will not drop. Those heat index temperatures will stay in the high 90’s and 100’s, in some parts of this country, for up to months on end.
If you think it's hot now, just wait awhile.
As the globe warms in the years ahead, days with extreme heat are forecast to skyrocket across hundreds of U.S. cities, a new study suggests, perhaps even breaking the "heat index."
“Our analysis shows a hotter future that’s hard to imagine today,” study co-author Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement. “Nearly everywhere, people will experience more days of dangerous heat in the next few decades."
Assuming the planet continues to warm at its current pace, and assuming nothing is done on a national or multinational level to slow that pace, hundreds of U.S. cities are expected to see month-long stretches of 100 degree “heat index” days by mid-century, according to a widely-reported study released this week by the peer-reviewed journal, Environmental Research Communications. The study is part of a larger report prepared by the Union of Concerned Scientists, also published this week, and is the first study that takes the “heat index” into account in determining the impacts of global warming. The study sets forth its findings assuming no significant action is taken to curb greenhouse gas emissions, or assuming that some, limited action is taken.
The study’s conclusions are sobering. Even if some steps are taken to curtail carbon dioxide emissions, the number of days in which the heat index exceeds 100 degrees throughout the lower 48 states is expected to double. If no action is taken, the outcome will be worse, and possibly “incalculable.”
On some days, conditions would be so extreme that they'd exceed the upper limit of the heat index, rendering it "incalculable," the study predicts.
“We have little to no experience with ‘off-the-charts’ heat in the U.S.,” said Erika Spanger-Siegfried, lead climate analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists and report co-author. “These conditions occur at or above a heat index of 127 degrees, depending on temperature and humidity. Exposure to conditions in that range makes it difficult for human bodies to cool themselves and could be deadly.”
One of the concerns raised is that some of the states (such as those in the upper Midwest and Northeast) that will be affected do not have an infrastructure in place to cope with such extreme heat events (the study also comes with an interactive map and search tool which allows users to determine the average posited heat index for a given region). As for the states that already experience severe heat conditions, the temperatures are forecast to be significantly higher than they have ever experienced. As explained in Inside Climate News:
For example, states like Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island have averaged only about a week out of every year with a heat index of 90°F or higher, the study says. But by midcentury, even with some action taken to reduce emissions, that number jumps to more than a month. For historically hot states, like Florida or Texas, the number of days hitting 100°F or higher on the heat index jumps to more than 100.
(emphasis supplied)
That would be the equivalent of over three months of 100-plus degree “heat index” days. Or an entire summer in the states of Florida and Texas. Does anyone in those states want to live through that, year after year?
“Our future promises a hotter climate; there is no way to avoiding that outcome,’’ the analysis said. “It is not a future the children of the 21st century will choose for themselves. The rest of us choose for them.’’
So, yet again, for the record, while Donald Trump is fiddling away our future and wasting our precious time with his vile, racist Tweets, we will all get a small reminder this week of what’s in store for us if we do not stop the continuous dumping of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere.
Man-made global warming, aka climate change, is caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as gas, coal and oil, which emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane into the atmosphere. This extra CO2 causes temperatures of the atmosphere and oceans to rise to levels that cannot be explained by natural factors, scientists say.