Get used to more absurdly hot Octobers
Get used to more absurdly hot Octobers
This year’s unrelenting heat, explained.
Vox
by Li Zhou
Oct 3, 2024 at 6:00 PM EDT
Much of the western United States is experiencing record temperatures — reaching the sorts of highs in October that are normally associated with some of the hottest days of summer.… All this is part of a larger trend, one with serious consequences: Heat can, in and of itself, be dangerous, especially to the elderly, the very young, and those with chronic health concerns. But it can also have cascading effects, from increasing wildfire risk to disrupting harvests. And, because of the effects of climate change, temperatures like those seen across the western US this week could become far more common.
“Human-caused climate change … is loading the weather dice toward more frequent and intense heat waves,” University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann told Vox.
…Climate change has also led to higher temperatures around the world throughout this past year, including a particularly hot summer in states across the US. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this was the country’s fourth-hottest summer on record, when looking at temperatures from June through August 2024. During those months, the average temperature in the contiguous United States was 73.8 degrees Fahrenheit — 2.5 degrees above the average from 1991-2020.
… fall doesn’t bring the same relief from heat it once did. As a September Climate Central report, which looked at 242 US cities, found, fall temperatures went up 2.5 degrees, on average, between 1970 and 2023.
More here
https://www.vox.com/climate/375996/extreme-heat-october-climate-change
= new reply since forum marked as read
