The Heat Is On, And It’s Time To Prepare
By Evan Girvetz and Frank Lowenstein
Whether you look globally or locally, the last several months featured heat, heat and more heat. And by looking at weather station records over the past 60 years, researchers led by renowned NASA scientist Jim Hansen show this is part of a new trend toward much warmer summers.
Extremely hot summers — warmer than virtually ever occurred during a base period of 1951-1980 — have occurred across more than 10% of the world’s lands during the past several years. This means that extremely hot temperatures are more than 10 times more likely to occur now than 50 years ago.
And we are simply not prepared for these temperatures!
You have likely felt the intense heat this year, which has broken tens of thousands of heat records across the U.S. Heat like this is deadly: the heat has killed dozens of people across the U.S., including more than 60 heat-related deaths over a two-week period earlier in the summer.
But do you also recall the heat wave in Texas and Oklahoma just last year that killed 100,000 cattle and 500 million trees? The Russian heat wave two years ago that killed 56,000 people? The European heat wave in 2003 that killed an estimated 70,000 people? Hansen’s paper indicates that these events may be climate-change related, and that people throughout the world are now at increased risk from heat-related disasters.
Other impacts of prolonged heat and drought are also a major societal concern. The hot period from March through July contributed to a failed cherry crop in Michigan, and the lowest corn yields in almost two decades, which are likely to cause higher prices and rippling problems for food and energy supplies.
