July 6, 2018

How Hot Is It? It’s So Hot That…

Temperatures will reach 95 degrees today…in Siberia. Nick Humphrey explains:

An extreme heat event for this particular region…with high temperatures of greater than 40 degrees F above recent normals….I’ve looked over the European model and there appears to be general agreement over the intensity and timing of this extreme event. It is absolutely incredible and really one of the most intense heat events I’ve ever seen for so far north….more and more sea ice disappears earlier in the season, leaving more dark blue ocean to absorb more daytime sunlight….This is known as Arctic Amplification….causing an abrupt weakening of the polar jet stream.

2018 has unfortunately been a prime example of global warming’s effect on the jet stream. And northern Siberia has been getting blowtorched by heat that refuses to quit because of an ongoing blocked pattern favorable for intense heat.

Would you like to see this in map form? Of course you would:

Today it’s heat, tomorrow it might be extreme cold. Climate change amplifies both, causing an increasing number of extreme weather events. Dan Spinelli has more from Humphrey here:

Once you reach certain tipping points, the Earth takes over and amplifies what we’ve done to make things go faster. These increasing heat events, these extreme weather events, that’s all a process of the Earth trying to speed itself up to get to a new stable state. Is that stable state going to be one that’s suitable for humanity?

Get back to me in a hundred years and I’ll let you know the answer to that question.

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