If You Hated Summer 2023's Mindbending Weather, Just Wait Until It Becomes Part Of The Good Old Days

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A relentless barrage of extreme weather events, fueled by human-caused global heating, has swept the North American continent this summer, routinely placing a third of the US population under warnings of severe heat and unleashing floods, fire and smoke upon communities, with a record 15 separate disasters causing at least $1bn in damages so far this year. The heat has been particularly withering in places like Phoenix, Arizona, which had a record 31 consecutive days at temperatures above 110F (43C), while an enormous heatwave across the central swath of the US this week caused schools to be closed in states such as Wisconsin, Colorado and Iowa and food banks to be shut in Nebraska.

In Miami, which had a record 46 days in a row with a heat index above 100F (37C), there was no respite even in the nearby ocean, with a raging marine heatwave turning the seawater to a temperature more normally seen in hot tubs, raising fears that Florida’s coral reef will be turned to mush. “It’s been a shocking summer,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA. “We know most of this is happening because of long-term warming of the climate system so it’s not surprising, sadly, but you still get shocked by these extremes. Records are not just being broken, they are being shattered by wide margins.”

The record temperatures are being driven not only by global heating caused by the burning of fossil fuels but also by the onset of El Niño, a periodic climate event that heats up part of the Pacific Ocean, causing temperatures to spike around the world. “We have seen an unusual summer and these ‘unusual’ summers will become more and more frequent in the future,” said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at the Nature Conservancy. Hayhoe said high temperatures, El Niño and natural variability have all combined to create the sort of conditions not seen before by humans. “It’s like an overloaded camel with an extra bale of hay and then some additional weight on top,” she said.

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Even a summer as extreme as this one is unlikely to significantly shift this dynamic, Swain said, even though it is likely to be followed by a string of years that are even hotter and more chaotic due to the onward upward march of global temperatures. Greenhouse gas emissions still remain historically high and the impact of El Niño is likely to be even more keenly felt next year. “This summer is most concerning to me personally and professionally not because it indicates an acceleration of climate change, more that it suggests we are somewhat inured to it,” Swain said. “This year is shocking and next year may well be worse. This summer will be among the cooler summers this century, it will feel like a remarkably cool summer 30 years from now even though it feels so extreme now. It is quite amazing, in fact it’s mind-blowing when you think about that.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/26/us-summer-extreme-heat-wildfires-climate-crisis