Extreme heat in North America
This is a collection of tweets and articles about the extreme heat situation growing throughout June 2021, focusing on the US and Canada, particularly the North West.
There is also extreme record-breaking heat around the world, for example in Russia, Iran and Pakistan. It’s important to know that many people in the Global South cannot afford cooling devices or energy, can have much less access to water, and are enduring temperatures more frequently around 45–50 C. In Jacobabad, Pakistan, it can top 52 C, and this article shares experiences of people there.
We welcome experience accounts of extreme weather from all over the world, particularly the Global South. Also, noting that the world of animals and plants is frequently forgotten in such accounts and we would welcome writers able to reflect on this. Please comment on this article to share your stories, or get in touch on climatemuseumuk@gmail.com if you’d like to publish an account here.
We should also note that there are extreme temperatures stretching up to the Arctic Circle, up to 47.7 C which is unprecedented. These are human and wildlife habitats not adapted to warmth, let alone extreme heat.
To add, a mention of Wet Bulb Temperature. If a thermometer is covered in a wet cloth, it’s a more accurate thermodynamic temperature. Even people used to heat can’t carry out normal outdoor activities past a wet-bulb temp of 32 C (90 F) and theoretically can’t survive some hours in the shade at 35 C wet bulb, even with water.
Now, to focus on America, gratitude to Scott Duncan, Peter Kalmus, Kees van der Leun and others for sharing in stark & visual ways. These temperature increases are shocking because so unprecedented in America, and we focus on this for this story, because awareness needs to be raised in one of the most polluting and wealthy areas of the world. It is also unequal, with BIPOC people often the most affected.
In this NASA article, scientist Cliff Mass is reported as explaining the situation in North West America: “exceptionally high pressure inland and low pressure near the coast have set up a strong flow of air from east to west, helping to push cool ocean air away from the coast”. It’s like a mountain of heat that won’t move, sometimes called a ‘heat dome’. Temperature records are being broken all over, and not just marginally, and for example, Lytton in BC has seen 49.6 C. The National Weather Service is calling it ‘historic and dangerous’. This has come along on top of a ‘once-in-a-millennium’ drought.
Scott Duncan creates powerful maps and graphics that include temperatures of oceans as well as land. He says “I didn’t think it was possible, not in my lifetime anyway”. When his tweet ends “this moment will be talked about for centuries” one has to wonder who will be around to do that talking? In response to this tweet, Greta Thunberg said “We’re destabilizing the planet. Meanwhile our leaders continue to destroy present and future living conditions — opening new pipelines, oilfields and investing fantasy amounts into fossil fuel infrastructure, despite all the beautiful words. #MindTheGap between words and action.”
Nick Bond, Washington’s climatologist said “I would have been willing to guess something like that in the middle of the century, in the latter part of the century.” (Reported in this explainer from The Guardian.)
The extreme heat this year is worse already than it was last year, which had led to massive fires, stories of which we gathered in September 2020. This CNN article draws on experiences of poorer people, particularly in black and brown neighbourhoods and considers how the area is maladapted in terms of its energy supplies and green infrastructure as climate breakdown continues.
In his tweets, the author of ‘Being the Change’, Peter Kalmus, reflects often on his own and family’s experiences, but in ways that powerfully connect extreme weather to ‘predatory delay’ on climate action and the broader systemic injustices. “It is insane that while climate breaks down all around us the Democratic party position is to subsidize the fossil fuel industry and refuse to ban fracking, and to support the Enbridge tar sands Line 3 Pipeline through Minnesota.” (Tweet, June 28th)
The injustices are not simply that poorer people can’t afford air con, but that they are more likely to die from the lack of it. In Vancouver, there is an increase in sudden deaths, especially among the elderly and vulnerable. Cooling centres are being opened up for people to take a break from the heat, and people have been booking air conditioned hotel rooms. In Seattle, hotels are charging hundreds of dollars for a single night. The extra use of energy has led to surges and blackouts. Transport networks are disrupted because of heat damage to roads, bridges and power cables for trains.
Another impact of the extreme heat is that air quality is dropping, worsening respiratory conditions, as the ‘heat dome’ is trapping heat higher in the atmosphere. Air quality is also affected by wildfires, already outpacing last year’s catastrophic fire season. The #LavaFire, for example, is the largest currently still burning in California. We are likely to need to do another collection of stories about wildfires this year, and it is not an encouraging prospect.
This piece will grow with more first-hand accounts of the current extreme heat as we find one. So, please do point us to social media posts, blogposts or articles that are useful.
One reason why this Extreme Weather Stories collection exists is to challenge the ways that this is reported by mainstream media. Connections to anthropogenic global heating are rarely made. News reports are based on the assumption that hot weather is good and fun, often illustrated with people ‘frolicking on beaches’. In this mindset, hotter weather is just a freak anomaly. These extremes are becoming more frequent, in unexpected places, lasting longer, breaking records and causing more damage to the environment and vulnerable communities. In turn those ecosystems and communities are less able to mitigate global warming or to adapt to it.
See this summary that most of the nine planetary boundaries are already breached, and about the leaked IPCC report that shows the Paris commitments are inadequate, yet won’t be published until Feb 2022 after COP26.
As Peter Kalmus says “Folks please realize that this is not a ‘new normal,’ it is only the early stages of climate breakdown which is a steady progression following inexorably the laws of physics. Only way out: leave fossil fuels, at every scale, especially transitioning away from the whole industry.” (Twitter, June 27th)
And read ‘This isn’t a heatwave — it’s a dying planet’ by Umair Haque.
