Heat records set across the world in June 2021

Global warming's tightening grip made itself visible yet again, as June came to a close, and countries across the northern hemisphere is worsening.

Heat records set across the world in June 2021

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• The story: Global warming's tightening grip made itself visible yet again, as June came to a close, and countries across the northern hemisphere experienced their hottest days ever recorded. For North America, in Seattle and Portland (usually temperate cities in America’s northwest), temperatures spiked to 108 and 116 degrees Fahrenheit (42.2-46.6 degrees Celsius), respectively, breaking records both cities had set in 2009.
• Europe: In Europe and the Middle East, June was a time of extreme heat. Sweihan, a town in the United Arab Emirates posted a national June record of 52 degrees Celsius as the region endured a historically intense heat wave compared to normal June levels. Cities across Eastern Europe joined Moscow and St. Petersburg in setting record high June temperatures.
• Wildfire risks: This kind of heat always raises immediate worries in the USA of more wildfires this season, to add to the 48 already raging, and an even worse drought, already labelled “exceptional,” the highest designation, in much of the western United States. Wary of another devastating wildfire season, U.S. President Joe Biden convened western state governors to discuss preparation and response at the White House.
• AC droughts: The record heat highlights how ill-prepared some countries are to survive the extreme heat that climate change will bring in the years to come. Air conditioning units are an uncommon sight in many northern European countries as well as (traditionally) colder U.S. states. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects the amount of air-conditioning units to shoot up in the next 30 years, going from 1.6 billion units today to 5.6 billion—posing problems for zero carbon initiatives if new demand is not taken into account.
• Hotter and hotter: While the unseasonably warm temperatures may be written off as a relatively rare “heat dome” phenomenon, the fact of a rapidly heating world is harder to wave away; 2020 was the world’s hottest year on record, just beating out a record set in 2016, according to NASA calculations, while the past seven years have been the hottest since record keeping began in the late 19th century.
• Knowledge centre: A "heat dome" is a mountain of warm air built into a very wavy jet stream, with extreme undulations. When the jet stream — a band of strong wind in the upper levels of the atmosphere — becomes very wavy and elongated, pressure systems can pinch off and become stalled or stuck in places they typically would not be. In June 2021, a ridge of high pressure, which is the heat dome, became lodged in the Pacific Northwest of the US. It is acting as a block in the atmosphere, not allowing the weather to move. The specific type of block is called an Omega block, because it looks like the greek letter Omega, and the hot air is pooling inside. Areas of high pressure, like heat domes, have sinking air. This compresses the air on the ground and through compression it heats the air column. In addition, winds are moving downslope from the mountains downward into cities like Seattle and Portland; that downward motion causes heating as well. These local effects combined with the background warming of climate change, which has warmed the Pacific Northwest by about 3 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit since pre-industrial times, adds intensity to an already strong heat wave.

 

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