Global warming, Canada around 50 degrees. The expert: “An impossible situation with the parameters of past climatology”

49.5 degrees, compared to an average temperature in June of 24. What a Lytton, a town 200 km from Vancouver, something never seen before is happening is evident even to the most skeptical. The grip of the heat would be the cause of dozens of sudden deaths recorded in the area in recent days. Extreme case of a never-before-seen heat wave sweeping parts of Canada and the North West of the United States with record highs even at Portland o a Seattle, and that in just two days – reports the Canadian police – caused 34 victims. Also suffocating are Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and California where even the high temperatures are less news. TO Verkhoyansk, in Arctic Russia, last June 21, they reached 40 degrees.

While Canadian bears are photographed seeking refreshment in the pools of local homes, the alarm is not so much the temperature itself as the fact that the usual parameters are exceeded for several consecutive days. The heat wave is ongoing since three days and it could last for all week. Symptom that we are dealing with something more than an unusual and sporadic conjuncture of climatic factors. Experts speak of one “Thermal dome” high pressure. The climatologist Cliff Mass, speaks of a rare combination of exceptionally high blood pressure inland and low near the coast which generated a strong flow of air from east to west, contributing to push the fresh ocean air away from the coast. Additionally, as warm air flows over the Cascade range, it becomes even warmer as it descends the western slopes of the range.

The meteorologist of the University of Munich Federico Grazzini he writes in a post on his Facebook page: “The shocking thing, for us in the branch, he is the figure on the right. Show that all 50 members of the probabilistic system predictions (colored curves), although starting from slightly different states, predict temperature values ​​higher than any event that occurred in the virtual world of the model (black curve). The climatology of the model, taking into account past events, covers a period equivalent to about two thousand simulations this week of the year. That is, something not very unlikely is happening, but completely impossible according to past climatology. A new climate, made up of increasingly powerful and anomalous heat waves.

“Instead of complaining about the hottest summer in the last 50 years, let’s rejoice that it is the freshest of the next 50 years“Someone jokes bitterly. In fact, reports have long warned that phenomena such as the one that is occurring in Canada will always be more frequent, long-lasting and of greater breadth. Simon Donner, climatologist at the University of British Columbia, said this wave is exactly what scientists have warned will become increasingly common, due to human activity and greenhouse gas emissions: “We will have more events like this and fewer cool summers”. A few days ago the Nasa released a study showing that the Earth’s atmosphere has stored one “unprecedented” amount of heat, doubled in nearly fifteen years. This phenomenon is at the root of the increase in ocean temperatures, with catastrophic effects on nature. “The trend is alarming,” commented the researcher Norman Loeb, who directed the studies.

Even more worrying is the draft report of the‘Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Ipcc) which will be published in its final version next August. “Climate change it will radically reshape life on Earth in the next decades, and this will happen even if human beings manage to tame greenhouse gas emissions “, reads the document which adds that”the danger thresholds are closer than previously thought and the dire consequences resulting from decades of unbridled carbon pollution are inevitable in the short term ”. The conclusion is very bitter “The worst is yet to come, affecting the lives of our children and grandchildren much more than ours “.

Simon Donner recalls as “Climate change is not inherently a bad thing. The problem is that the climate is changing faster than we can adapt ”. The planet and its ecosystem are able to adapt, we cannot, the IPCC report also warns: “Life on Earth can recover from a drastic climate change by evolving into new species and creating new ecosystems. But our current levels of adaptation they are inadequate to respond to future climate risks “. Mid-century projections – even in an optimistic scenario of 2 degrees centigrade heating – signal how tens of millions more people are at risk of facing chronic hunger and another 130 million could experience extreme poverty. In 2050, coastal cities on the “front line” will see hundreds of millions of people at risk of flooding.

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