On June 27 the Pacific Northwest encountered a groundbreaking heat wave with some temperatures rising above 115 degrees in Vancouver and the Portland-Metropolitan area, according to the National Weather Service. With the unprecedented event causing several casualties and damages to natural resources, two climatologists from Washington State reflect and discuss what could be foreseen in future summers.
Several meteorologists, including climate scientist and professor of WSU Vancouver’s School of the Environment, Deepti Singh, explain how a rare heat dome contributed to the heat wave, causing high pressures to form and inflict hotter temperatures over the region.
“The mechanisms of heat waves are different in different regions, but in the mid-latitudes, when a region of high pressure forms over an area, it involves sinking air. As the air sinks towards the surface, it warms and dries up. That’s what contributes to heating up the surface and the atmosphere,” Singh explained.
Although the heat wave may have come as a surprise to many local northwesterners, climatologists like Singh agree that climate change played a distinctive role. In fact, according to an analysis by 27 climate scientists from the World Weather Attribution network, the study claims the heat wave would have been “virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.” While Singh notes the heat wave is somewhat unsurprising, and a direct result of climate change, she clarifies scientists were shocked at the degree of the exceeded temperatures.
“Pretty much everywhere around the world, if we continue to increase greenhouse gases, [it] is going to result in warming temperatures, and as the temperatures in areas warm, we’re likely to see more frequent, severe and longer-lasting heat waves. … It’s not a surprise that we experienced this. I guess most climate scientists were mainly surprised because of the magnitude and how severe and widespread the heat wave was,” – Deepti Singh
(Photo courtesy of Humanities Washington)
Washington State Climatologist, Nicholas Bond, has been the state’s designated climate scientist since 2010, and actively collects data to analyze and interpret climate data for the region. Bond states the heat wave impacted many other factors including human health, infrastructure and ecosystems.
With Bond’s current research focusing on climate and ocean variability, he says one of the areas most impacted by the heat wave is the freshwater environment that houses a vast amount of marine life in Puget Sound. Due to the rising temperatures, coastal waters were heated drastically, in turn killing copious amounts of aquatic organisms.
“This heat wave has heated up our marine systems, especially the freshwater. … In the Salish Sea, which includes Puget Sound, reports showed fish die-off in various places, in particular, mussels were basically cooked to death,” Bond said. “You hear about these massive die-offs and if those places happened to be low tide when it was the hottest, there was probably a pretty high mortality rate.”
While Singh and Bond both agree we may not see as hot of summers within the next few decades, they advise that if greenhouse gases continue to increase, more frequent and severe heat waves could be a recurring scenario we will have to prepare for.
“The climate system has some variability. We might see some years in the future being cooler than they are right now. But overall, we’re likely to see hotter summers with more heat waves and stronger heat waves. That’s something we’re going to have to learn to deal with,” Singh explained.
As the heat wave sparks conversation topics dealing with the impacts of climate change, both Singh and Bond encourage others to become more proactive when learning about its consequences on Earth’s global environment. Singh recommends checking out resources such as the U.S. national climate assessment and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for those interested in gaining more knowledge about the climate crisis.
“It is possible to overhype the climate change aspects here because first and foremost this is an extreme weather event. But to the extent that it galvanized interest in actual actions to deal with heat, I think that’s a good thing,” Bond said. “There’s been tremendous impacts on human health, agriculture and ecosystems. Knowing that a warmer climate is a certainty in general, means we need to figure out what we’re going to do about it.”
Emily is a senior studying integrated strategic communication at WSU Vancouver.