Rapid attribution of PNW heatwave
From realclimate.org. Temps have been so abnormal even for warming models. Are they flukes? Or is global warming involved?
Rapid attribution of PNW heatwave
Summary: It was almost impossible for the temperatures seen recently in the Pacific North West heatwave to have occurred without global warming. And only improbable with it.
It’s been clear for at least a decade that global warming has been in general increasing the intensity of heat waves, with clear trends in observed maximum temperatures that match what climate models have been predicting. For the specific situation in the Pacific NorthWest at the end of June, we now have the first attribution analysis from the World Weather Attribution group - a consortium of climate experts from around the world working on extreme event attribution. Their preprint (Philip et al.) is available here.
In the paper, they show that this event was truly exceptional in the temperature statistics in the region and specifically in Vancouver, Seattle and Portland, but that the geopotential height anomaly (one measure of the ‘heat dome’ or the ridging) was not that far off from the underlying trends. Using various methods to construct the return time for this event, they show that even in today’s climate this was a one in 400 yrs or longer event. Using only data from before 2021, an anomaly this large is estimated to never occur!...
Read On... What happened?!
Rapid attribution of PNW heatwave
Summary: It was almost impossible for the temperatures seen recently in the Pacific North West heatwave to have occurred without global warming. And only improbable with it.
It’s been clear for at least a decade that global warming has been in general increasing the intensity of heat waves, with clear trends in observed maximum temperatures that match what climate models have been predicting. For the specific situation in the Pacific NorthWest at the end of June, we now have the first attribution analysis from the World Weather Attribution group - a consortium of climate experts from around the world working on extreme event attribution. Their preprint (Philip et al.) is available here.
In the paper, they show that this event was truly exceptional in the temperature statistics in the region and specifically in Vancouver, Seattle and Portland, but that the geopotential height anomaly (one measure of the ‘heat dome’ or the ridging) was not that far off from the underlying trends. Using various methods to construct the return time for this event, they show that even in today’s climate this was a one in 400 yrs or longer event. Using only data from before 2021, an anomaly this large is estimated to never occur!...
Read On... What happened?!