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posted by martyb on Friday June 16 2017, @06:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the hot-enough-for-you? dept.

The Washington Post reports

It's not all that common, but the hottest weather in the nation lined up along the Interstate 95 corridor from the District [of Columbia] to Boston on Tuesday afternoon [June 13]. More than 15 locations set record highs.

[...] Temperatures into the mid-90s were widespread. Factor in the humidity, and it felt more like 95 to 100.

[...] In Boston, the heat wave was the second of the year, the earliest on record that the city posted two such events.

[...] Dulles International Airport climbed to 95 degrees, breaking the previous record of 94 set in 1994.

Baltimore soared to 97 degrees, tying the record set in 1956.

The Center for American Progress reports

An early summer heat wave delivered record temperatures from Nebraska to Maine this week. On Tuesday, some parts of the Midwest and Northeast saw temperatures 20 degrees above the historical average. And this is just the beginning of what is expected to be a very hot summer.

In case you were wondering--yes, this is what climate change looks like.

[...] Globally, carbon pollution is trapping heat, shifting the entire distribution of temperatures.

[...] Temperatures at the far end of the distribution, the ones that break records, are almost invariably explained by carbon pollution. A recent study found that, globally, 85 percent of record-hot days are the product of climate change.

The shift in temperatures means less extreme cold and more extreme heat. Correspondingly, record highs are now drastically outnumbering record lows in the United States.

Meanwhile, researchers at the University of California - Irvine report Small climb in mean temperatures linked to far higher chance of deadly heat waves

An increase in mean temperature of 0.5 degrees Celsius over half a century may not seem all that serious, but it's enough to have more than doubled the probability of a heat wave killing in excess of 100 people in India, according to researchers at the University of California, Irvine and other institutions.

This could have grim implications for the future, because mean temperatures are projected to rise by 2.2 to 5.5 degrees Celsius by the end of this century in the low- and mid-latitude countries of the Asian subcontinent, the Middle East, Africa, and South America.

[...] Using data gathered by the India Meteorological Department from 1960 to 2009, the UCI-led team analyzed changes in summer temperatures; the frequency, severity and duration of heat waves; and heat-related deaths.

They found that when mean summer temperatures in the South Asia nation went from 27 to 27.5 degrees Celsius, the probability of a heat wave killing more than 100 people grew from 13 percent to 32 percent--an increase of 146 percent.

Journal reference: Omid Mazdiyasni et al. Increasing probability of mortality during Indian heat waves. Science Advances, June 2017 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1700066


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  • (Score: 2) by sbgen on Saturday June 17 2017, @03:26AM (1 child)

    by sbgen (1302) on Saturday June 17 2017, @03:26AM (#526787)

    It appears India already has a sizable deficit. You have a sigmoidal curve - what does it say this deficit will be by 2050? What if you include the rate of population growth in it? I hope there is some data from IEA report about this, the one that you quote there.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 17 2017, @03:47AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday June 17 2017, @03:47AM (#526793) Journal
    I do recall saying the key word "crude". But perhaps you could just tell me what the future will be, and then I can fit the model to that?