The city of Chicago has already experienced a number of severe heat waves, with a 1995 event estimated to be responsible for nearly 800 deaths. Is there a link between climate change and recent heat waves? However, global warming is also altering the average climate experienced throughout the year (WMO, 2015). Editor’s note: Updated on August 21, 2019. There’s another way that climate change worsens heat waves: by changing the jet stream. We know climate change will bring more frequent and intense heat waves to the U.S. Twenty years later, are we twenty years wiser? NOAA/National Centers for Environmental Information, Climate Extremes Index. Scientific Expertise and Context on Deadline. NOAA data show that summer nighttime lows have increased by 1.46 degrees F while summer daytime highs have increased 0.77 degrees F per century from 1895 when national records began to 2018. Consequently, every summer is now warmer than average, and the summer climate now lasts considerably longer. In a study conducted by World Weather Attribution, researchers found Lucifer to be 10 times more likely than it would have been in the early 1900s. This pandemic painfully illustrates that no person is an island. Extreme heat occurred very rarely 50 years ago in the United States. Editorially independent, nonpartisan, and funded by philanthropies, SciLine has a singular mission of enhancing the amount and quality of scientific evidence in news stories. In a study of two affected regions – the Bering Sea of Alaska and waters off northern Australia – researchers concluded that the event was up to 50 times more likely due to human-caused climate change. Consider a graph of temperatures plotted on a bell curve. Major parties’ climate programs are miles apart, Air pollution from fossil fuels caused 8.7 million premature deaths in 2018, study finds, With seas rising, stalled research budgets must also rise, Sea-level rise could submerge fiber optic cables, a key component of internet infrastructure, How Nebraska farmer Russ Finch grows citrus year-round using geothermal energy, Proudly powered by Newspack by Automattic. As a result, we’re seeing more and more warmer-than-average years and more frequent extreme heat events. And if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels, we’ll keep setting heat records and keep experiencing more heatwaves. Globally, extreme temperature events are observed to be increasing in their frequency, duration, and magnitude. Of all the types of extreme weather, heatwaves may be the most obvious one to connect to climate change and, well, a warming world. This page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This same heat wave then built north into the Arctic, resulting in the biggest melt day in recent Greenland history. Extreme heat is becoming more common. An exceptional heat wave – nicknamed “Lucifer” – occurred in southern Europe in 2017. View Source. But as a result of climate change, the bell curve has already shifted by one standard deviation interval – a measure that tells you how spread out the values are – according to a 2016 paper by climate scientist James Hansen. Over the coming century, climate change is projected to increase both mean and extreme temperatures as heat waves become more frequent, intense, and long-lived. The researchers estimate some tropical regions could experience up to 120 extra heat-wave days per season if the Earth warms by 5 degrees Celsius, which could happen by 2100. The National Climate Assessment estimates half of the projected deaths in the U.S. can be avoided if the global community adopts and adheres to a lower emissions scenario. Over the coming decades, every region of the US is expected to experience hotter temperatures and more frequent and intense heat waves. License applies to text and video only. Our recent past is merely a paltry precursor to a much hotter future. Vogel, M.M. Seager, R. et al. In 2016, a quarter of the planet’s ocean surface experienced either the longest or most intense marine heat wave on record. Science Advances 4, eaat3272. Vogel, M.M. The first heat wave in late June 2019 led to a temperature of 115 degrees F in France, eclipsing the all-time country record by more than three degrees. (2017), Scientific Reports, 7, 45242. The effects of heat waves on human health could be reduced if individuals recognise the risks and adopt healthy behaviours during a heat wave.