"Heat waves continue to wash over the globe, breaking records and threatening lives. This year is on track to rank among the four hottest years on record—together with 2015, 2016, and 2017. Buildings and roads in the United Kingdom are literally melting. In Japan, 116 people died and more than 30,000 were taken to hospitals by ambulance because of the heat wave in July.
Along with the scorching heat, deadly wildfires are dominating much of the news cycle. Fires have raged in places as widespread as the American West, Greece, and the Arctic. More than 10,000 firefighters are battling the Carr Fire in California, which has killed six people and burned more than 100,000 acres and is still growing. In a July 29 tweet, writer Alex Steffen wrote that “the pyrocumulus [fire] cloud “is to this generation what the mushroom cloud was to Boomers.”
Scientific studies have linked earlier heat waves to climate change, and a new analysis by scientists with the World Weather Attribution project concluded that human-driven climate change made the latest heat wave in northern Europe more than twice as likely. Scientists have also warned that climate change makes wildfires more likely in places where high temperatures and low humidity combine to deadly effect."
Dawn Stover reports for Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists July 31, 2018.
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