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Media reaction Pacific north-west heat dome and the role of climate change
MEDIA ANALYSIS
30 June 202117:20

Media reaction: Pacific north-west ‘heat dome’ and the role of climate change

Multiple Authors

06.30.21
Media analysis Media reaction: Pacific north-west ‘heat dome’ and the role of climate change

Less than two weeks afterrecord-breaking temperaturesforced California into astate of emergency, a severe heatwave has swept overnorthwestern US and Canada,shattering records across the region.

In Lytton, a small village in Canada, record-breaking temperatures of46.1C (115F),47.9C (118F)and49.6C (121.3F)were recorded on three consecutive days. Before this heatwave, the highest recorded temperature in the region was 45C. Similarly,SeattleandPortlandin the US have seen three consecutive days of record-breaking temperatures.

The heat has driven many cities to a standstill, forcingschools,Covid-19 vaccination centresandrestaurantsto close, as well as prompting governments torelaxsocial-distancing rules to allow people without air conditioning to shelter inemergency cooling centres. Nevertheless, hospitals are filling up with patients with “heat-related illnesses” and thedeath tollhas begun to rise.

高atmosphe的热浪是由一个区域ric pressure sitting over the North American continent, which many media outlets are calling a “heat dome”. However, US presidentJoe Bidenand Canadianprime minister Justin Trudeauhave joined many climate scientists and media reports in linking the extreme temperatures to climate change.

In this article, Carbon Brief summarises how the extreme heat and the role of climate change has been covered by the media.

How has the heatwave developed?

On Wednesday 23 June, US weather forecasterswarnedthat a “historic and dangerous heatwave” would hit over the weekend, cautioning that cities in the northwest US, such as Seattle, Portland and Spokane, could see temperatures near and above 38C (100F).

随着高压区域开始接近Friday 25 June, the first temperature record – a record-high minimum daily temperature in Seattle – was broken. “If you’re keeping a written list of the records that will fall, you might need a few pages by early next week,”NWS Seattle tweeted.

And, as the weekend began, media outlets were reporting that temperature records were falling in earnest. Portland, in Oregon, broke its all-time highest temperature record on Saturday, theGuardianreported, with temperatures reaching 42.2C (108F). Temperatures climbed further to 44.4C (112F) on Sunday, according toCBS News. AndBBC Newsreported that temperatures reached 46.1C (115F) on Monday – marking the third day in a row the city set a new all-time high.

As the week progressed, other cities began reporting consecutive broken records, too. “To put it in perspective, today will likely go down in history as the hottest day ever recorded for places such as Seattle, WA and Portland, OR,” theNational Weather service saidon Tuesday.

According toBBC News, Seattle recorded temperatures of 38.3C (101F) on Saturday afternoon – the city’s record-high temperature for June. TheSeattle Timesreported that temperatures reached 40C (104F) on Sunday before rising again to 42.2C (108F) on Monday evening. This exceeds the city’s previous record of 39.4C (103F) from 2009, theWashington Postnoted.

Similarly, Lytton – a small village in British Columbia, Canada – reported record-breaking temperatures on three consecutive days, according toCBC. The outlet reported that highs of 49.6C were reached on Tuesday in the village of Lytton, adding:

“Lytton, a village in the Fraser Canyon located about 260 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, also saw record-breaking highs of 47.9C on Monday and 46.6C on Sunday. Before this week, the highest temperature ever recorded in Canada was 45C in Saskatchewan in 1937.”

WhileReuters报道说,温度的急剧下降some parts of the US on Tuesday, a Met Office forecast shows that temperatures are still significantly higher than the climatological average.

What are the impacts of the extreme heat?

Extreme temperaturescan be deadly– especially to children, elderly people and people with underlying health conditions. The USNational Weather Serviceissuedexcessive-heat warningson Monday 28 June for much of Washington and Oregon, as well as for sections of California, Idaho and Nevada.

As temperatures rose,Reutersreported that provinces in western Canada “closed schools and universities”, so that people could stay inside.AP newsadded that in Seattle, the extreme heat forced a wide range of institutions to shut down:

“The heat forced schools and businesses to close to protect workers and guests, including some places like outdoor pools and ice cream shops where people seek relief from the heat. Covid-19 testing sites and mobile vaccination units were out of service as well.”

Many outlets reported on the disruption to people’s day-to-day lives, as sheltering from the heat became the main priority. “Pacific north-west cities shatter heat records again, life grinds to a halt,” read oneReutersheadline.

Perishable items are covered with a layer of plastic to keep in the cool air at a Fred Meyer grocery store in Portland
Perishable items are covered with a layer of plastic to keep in the cool air at a Fred Meyer grocery store in Portland. Credit: Sipa US /Alamy Stock Photo.

Meanwhile,CBCreported that air-conditioning units were selling out.BBC Newsnoted that many people British Columbia do not have air conditioning, as temperatures are usually far milder, adding:

“One Vancouver resident told AFP news agency that hotels seemed to be sold out, as people flocked there for air-conditioning, adding: ‘I’ve never seen anything like this. I hope it never becomes like this ever again.’”

ABC Newsadded that fewer than half of the residents in Seattle have air-conditioning in their homes, as average temperatures in June are usually around 21C.

To combat the heat, many counties opened up buildings with air-conditioning – such as cinemas and shopping malls – to the public as emergency “cooling shelters”, reportedOregon Live. According toCNBC, Amazon turned part of its downtown Seattle headquarters into an emergency public cooling centre, whileReutersnoted that Multnomah County, which includes Portland, opened 11 such centres – mostly in public libraries.

Despite these precautions, though,Buzzfeed Newsreported that, across Washington and Oregon, more than 1,100 people have been sent to hospital for “possible heat-related illness” in recent days.

As the heat began to subside later in the week, coverage shifted from broken records to rising death tolls.BBC Newsreported on Tuesday that in Vancouver alone, police had responded to more than 130 sudden deaths, in which heat was often a “contributing factor”. The outlet added:

“A doctor in a Seattle hospital told theSeattle Timesthe number of patients streaming in with heat stroke was comparable to the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Meanwhile, theGuardianreported on Wednesday that British Columbia has seen a 195% increase in sudden deaths and theNew York Timesran a piece on Thursday entitled, “heat-related death toll climbs to nearly 100 in Washington State and Oregon”.HuffpostandCNBCalso ran pieces on death tolls in Canadian and US cities.

The extreme temperatures have also been punishing for local infrastructure. AnIndependentpiece entitled, “Train cables melt and roads buckle in Northwest’s 46C heatwave,” noted that asphalt on the highway had “expanded and ruptured due to the hot weather”, rendering many roads unsafe for travel.

ThePortland Streetcartweeted that it was cancelling service for the day after power cables melted in the heat. Meanwhile, the Portlandtrain servicereduced the maximum speed of its services, running theannouncement: “Once we hit 90F Saturday through Monday, all MAX [Metropolitan Area Express] lines will reduce speed to no more than 35mph for the rest of the day. Expect delays on all MAX lines.”

Meanwhile,Reutersreported that the utility firmPacific Power, which serves 10 states, asked customers to use less energy during the heatwave.

“With temperatures reaching 46C, we noted the licence plate on our vehicle surface had bubbled,” Bob Chamberlin, 56, who lives in North Vancouver, told theTimes.

TheGuardianreported on the disruption in Portland over the weekend:

“The hot weather had berry farmers scrambling to pick crops before they rot on the vine and fisheries managers working to keep endangered sockeye salmon safe from too-warm river water. Stores sold out of portable air conditioners and fans, some hospitals cancelled outdoor vaccination clinics, cities opened cooling centres, baseball teams cancelled or moved up weekend games, and utilities braced for possible power outages.”

Even as temperatures begin to subside, Karin Bumbaco, the assistant climatologist for the state of Washington, told theNew York Timesthat the prolonged heat “might actually have more implications for our agriculture and potential wildfires” than the record highs.

By Wednesday, as the heat in some regions began to subside,Reutersreported that officials were “braced” for wildfires. In Lytton – the village in British Columbia where the most extreme temperatures were seen – a fire broke out on Wednesday evening, forcing the entire village toevacuate,Guardianreported.

More than 1,000 people were evacuated,CBC Newsreported on Thursday. It added:

“The loss includes ‘most homes’ and structures in the village, as well as the local ambulance station and RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] detachment. The local member of parliament said 90% of the village is gone. Online community groups were filled with posts from people desperate for information about family, friends and pets left behind.”

British Columbia (BC) remier John Horgan told reporters that “62 new fires were reported in BC in the past 24 hours, forcing authorities to issue new evacuation orders affecting some 700 people in BC’s Cariboo region,”Reutersreported on Friday. TheDaily Telegraphalso covered news of the fire.

What is a ‘heat dome’?

The extreme temperatures in western parts of the US and Canada over the past week have been driven by a phenomenon known as a “heat dome” – a large and long-lasting region of high pressure sitting in the upper atmosphere.

TheWashington Postdescribed the heat dome as a “sprawling zone of high pressure centered near the US-Canada border”, adding that its strength is “so statistically rare that it might be expected only once every several thousand years on average”.

This high-pressure zone “acts like a lid on a pot, trapping heat so that it accumulates”, wrote theNew York Times. A piece in theAtlanticcalled it “a hot-air balloon, thwarted”. The Atlantic went on:

“In a heat dome, the [hot] air’s rise is impeded by a high-pressure system sitting on the atmosphere. When the air tries to rise, the system above nudges it back down to the surface. As the air descends, and more and more of the atmosphere’s weight settles on top of it, it becomes denser and hotter…The air can’t escape this cycle, so it just circulates up and down, getting hotter and hotter.”

Voxreported that a heat dome also “squeezes clouds away, which gives the sun an unobstructed line of sight to the ground” and allows it to warm the surface more effectively. The timing of this particular heat dome – coming just after the northern hemisphere’s summer solstice – also heightens the sun’s heating ability, theWashington Postreported:

“The high summer sun angle combined with those cloudless skies then in turn further heats the surface.”

A separate piece in theWashington Postalso noted that the longest days of the year are “giving the heat dome extra time to increase temperatures”.

Writing in a “guest essay” for theNew York Times, climate scientistProf Michael Mannand climate change communicatorSusan Joy Hassolpointed to the role of the jet stream in allowing the high-pressure “blocking” weather pattern to form (see亚慱官网’s explainer on blocking for more details). They wrote:

“The heatwave afflicting the Pacific north-west is characterised by what is known as an omega block pattern, because of the shape the sharply curving jet stream makes, like the Greek letter omega (Ω). This omega curve is part of a pattern of pronounced north-south wiggles made by the jet stream as it traverses the northern hemisphere.”

According to Mann and Hassol, such jet stream patterns are “an example of a phenomenon known as wave resonance, which scientists (including one of us) have shown isincreasingly favouredby the considerable warming of the Arctic”. (Links between rapid Arctic warming and extreme weather in the mid-latitudes are the subject of ongoing scientific debate – see亚慱官网’s explainer for more.)

TheWashington Postreported that, while heat domes are a common summertime occurrence in parts of the US south-west, the current pressure system is “striking for its incredible strength, geographic scope and persistence”.

The ongoing drought in the western US may be making the heatwave hotter as well.Dr Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles, toldNPRthat drought and heatwaves are a “vicious cycle”. He said:

“The drought is leading to extremely low soil moisture, which is making it easier for these high-pressure systems to generate extreme heat waves because more of the sun’s energy is going into heating the atmosphere rather than evaporating nonexistent water in the soil.”

In the coming week, the western part of the heat dome will begin “gradually eroding”, according to thehazards outlookpublished on 28 June by the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center. As the pressure system erodes, cloud cover and moist air will begin to provide relief from the heat.

What role has climate change played?

Among climate scientists, the consensus is clear – more than it is forperhaps any other type of extreme weather event– that heatwaves are being made worse by climate change. In fact, a 2016reportpublished by the USNational Academy of Scienceson extreme weather attribution concluded:

“Heat events are arguably the extreme weather events for which attribution studies are most straightforward and have the longest history.”

Thefifth assessment reportof theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC), published in 2013, stated that it is “very likely” that humans were contributing to the observed changes in heatwaves since 1950, and “virtually certain” that warm temperature extremes will occur more frequently as global temperatures continue to increase.

Echoing the article by Mann and Hassol in the New York Times,CNNreported that climate change may be increasing the jet stream’s propensity to get “stuck”, which can cause “severe heat, drought or wildfires”.Bloombergreported that other record-breaking heatwaves this summer – such as those in eastern Europe and Siberia – have also been linked to the same jet stream patterns.

Meanwhile, climate science professor and Carbon Brief contributing editor,Prof Simon Lewis, penned an opinion piece for theGuardian: entitled, “Canada is a warning: more and more of the world will soon be too hot for humans”. Lewis highlighted extreme temperatures in the Middle East and Asia:

“Another heatwave earlier in June saw five Middle East countries top 50C. The extreme heat reachedPakistan, where 20 children in one class were reported to have fallen unconscious and needed hospital treatment for heat stress. Thankfully, they all survived.”

He continued: “In places in the Middle East and Asia something truly terrifying is emerging: the creation of unliveable heat.”

Met Officeclimate scientistDr Nikos Christidiswas quoted in ablog postas saying that a heatwave of this magnitude “would have been almost impossible” without human contributions to climate change. He added:

“[Analysis] suggests that by the end of the century these extreme temperatures are more likely than not. Human influence is estimated to have increased the likelihood of a new record several thousand times.”

Prof Friederike Otto, associate director ofOxford University’sEnvironmental Change Institute, was one of many scientists who tweeted about the links between the extreme heat and human-driven climate change. She wrote that the team atWorld Weather Attributionis “working hard” on understanding how much local factors intensified or weakened the heatwave. (For more on rapid attribution studies, see亚慱官网’s recent guest post by Otto and others.)

热浪是否可以与气候有关change is “not even an interesting scientific question anymore”, wroteProf Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist atTexas A&M University.

Dessler toldAxios:

“The mismatch between what [weather events] we are adapted for and what we actually experience can generate huge negative impacts that seem to suddenly appear out of nowhere – even though we’ve been predicting them for literally decades.”

Prof Erica Fleishmantold theNew York Timesthat “we can say extreme weather is happening more as climate changes and will continue to happen more”. Fleishman, who is the director of theOregon Climate Change Research Institute, added that the event is “extraordinary”, but warned that it “is not likely to be the last”.

But, despite the clear connection to climate change, many local media outlets have shied away from mentioning it in their reporting. Chase Woodruff, a Colorado-based environmental policy reporter, analysed nearly 150 articles in the local news and found that just six of them had referred to climate change in any capacity.

What has the media response been?

The record-breaking heat across Canada and the western US has received widespread national and international attention over the past few days – and many media outlets have also been keeping up a running narrative of the temperature records being broken.

TheWashington Post’s Capital Weather Gangreported on Tuesday that the heatwave is “obliterating scores of long-standing records” – including a list of the 33 “all-time record highs” set since Saturday. Similarly, theNew York Timessaid that Canada’s climate record has been “shattered” andBBC Newsreported that the heatwave is “sending records tumbling”.

As the heatwave progressed, reporters began to place more emphasis on the link between climate change and the extreme temperatures. On Wednesday, theGuardianreported that President Joe Biden had “joined scientists in blaming the climate crisis for [the] record-shattering heatwave”. The newspaper continues:

“‘Anybody ever believe you’d turn on the news and see it’s 116 degrees in Portland, Oregon? 116 degrees,’ Biden said in a barbed criticism of climate deniers. ‘But don’t worry – there is no global warming because it’s just a figment of our imaginations.’”

TheGuardianpublished a video of Biden’s comments. “Climate change is driving a dangerous confluence of extreme heat and prolonged drought,” Biden said. He added that “wildfires are not a partisan phenomenon. They don’t stop at a county or a state line or country line for that matter.”

Reutersreported: “President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that the US was behind in preparing for what could be a record number of forest fires this year because of drought and high temperatures and pledged to pay federal firefighters more.”

Meanwhile,BBC News周四报道,加拿大总理Justin Trudeau had “described heatwaves as a growing problem, and went on to talk about climate change”.

TheGuardianadded that, according to Canadian climate scientistDr Katherine Hayhoe, “Canada was warming twice as fast than the rest of the world and monthly higher temperatures were being broken three times more frequently than cold temperature records”.

TheWashington Post’s weather editor Jason Samenow penned a piece warning that “climate change studies have warned for more than three decades that this is our future”. In the opening paragraphs, he wrote:

“Many have expressed shock about this unprecedented heat wave. Yet the writing has been on the wall for decades. Since the 1970s and 1980s, climate scientists have warned that global warming would make heat waves more frequent, long-lasting and intense. Maybe it’s only now that the reality is hitting home.”

A separate analysis piece in theWashington Postnoted that 55 countries have set new all-time highs just in the past decade, stating that this is “obviously a function of the world’s normal temperatures shifting higher as a result of climate change”.

Meanwhile, theWashington Postran an editorial on Wednesday entitled, “Scalding temperatures give a taste of the suffering global warming brings”:

“Americans should get used to terms such as ‘heat dome’ and ‘megadrought’. The sorts of extreme weather events that experts warned would become increasingly frequent are occurring. Searing temperatures across the Pacific Northwest are just the latest example.”

The paper warned that “human society has developed within a narrow temperature band”, adding:

“Hospitals are unused to handling symptoms of extreme heat exposure. Similarly, the dry docks in Virginia’s Hampton Roads were built for a lower sea level, and the fisheries in Maine rely on water temperatures remaining within a certain range.”

A furtherWashington Postarticle stated that the event “could not have been this extreme without human-caused climate change”. It continued:

“The role of climate change has been to substantially increase the likelihood of record-breaking temperatures. Simple logic dictates a climate experiencing a background warming of several degrees will be more prone to hotter heat events.”

TheAssociated Pressalso reported that the heatwave was “worsened by human-caused climate change”. Meanwhile,Scientific Americancovered the heatwave under the headline, “Unprecedented heat wave in Pacific north-west driven by climate change”, and theIndependentran a piece entitled, “Once-in-a-millennium heat dome lodges over US and Canada in preview of future climate disaster”.

TheHilland theWashington Postpublished comments from scientists on the link between climate change and extreme temperatures. Meanwhile, the heatwave was the cover story forLibérationin France on Thursday, with a full page image of a burning sun, the title: “Canada 49.6C” and subtitle: “Climate change.”

In theGuardian, columnist Arwa Mahdawi penned an opinion piece entitled, “Extreme weather is no longer ‘unprecedented’ – it has become the norm”, saying that “none of what is happening should be a surprise to anybody. The climate crisis is not some big secret – it hasn’t been for a long time”.

NBC Newsdescribed how climate change “loads the dice” for heatwaves. However, Dessler – writing forGrist– argued that the loaded dice analogy is no longer strong enough:

“The analogy that people often use is loading the dice – you have dice and they used to be fair, but now we’re loading up the sixes…But what’s actually happening is we’re hitting the point where we’ve added another side. Now we’re rolling sevens.”

Meanwhile, aWashington Postcomment piece by journalist Charlie Warzel highlighted the extreme heatwave of 52C that has hit Pakistan and discussed the “existential dread” of climate change. AndCBS Newsalso called the heatwave a “once-in-a-millennium heat” event”, stating:

“Turns out, the [climate] models were correct and we should expect extreme heat waves – even unprecedented ones like this – to become more routine”.

However, climate science researcherProf Timmons Robertshighlighted that many outlets are still using “pleasant”imagesin their coverage of the heatwave, which do not show the danger of extreme temperatures. Others to highlight this problem on twitter includeGreta ThunbergandDr Genevieve Guenther.

BBC Newsran a piece entitled “US-Canada heatwave: Visual guide to the causes”, including charts and maps of the heatwave, as well as images of its impacts. And in aGuardianopinion piece, meteorologist and author Eric Holthaus said:

“The imagery we should remember from this heatwave isn’t swimming pools and fountains, it’s friends and neighbours sharing air-conditioning amid a pandemic in a city that’s 40 degrees warmer than normal. It’s young people braving heat stroke to demand climate action from a president who promised it to them. It’s the anxiety of not knowing when or where the next heatwave will be, but knowing that it’s coming. It’s about surviving a society where decades of racial segregation means that redlined neighbourhoods are 15 degrees hotter than others.”

Public officials also weighed in. Washington state governorJay Insleepenned a piece in theSeattle Times, warning that “our recent discomfort is but the tip of the melting iceberg…What we felt this week is just the opening act in a looming global disaster.”

Reporting by theGuardianincluded comments from Democratic senatorMaria Cantwell,他说热“急需for the federal infrastructure package to promote clean energy, cut greenhouse gas emissions and protect people from extreme heat”.

On Friday, thefront pageof theGuardian以comments from several scientists, including Prof Sir David King, the former UK chief scientific adviser, who said: “Nowhere is safe…who would have predicted a temperature of 48-49C in British Columbia?”

周五还看到一波又一波的新鲜的像nt pieces. Writing in theGuardian, Justin Shaw – creator of theSeattle Weather Blog– said:

“The heatwave gripping our part of the country has gone from significant to sickening. When a city like Seattle, nestled up against the cool waters of Puget Sound, bakes in triple-digit heat for three days in a row, it’s not a good sign.”

In theVancouver Sun,Prof Alejandro Adem– president of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and a professor of mathematics at the University of BC – said that “research is our best tool for dealing with climate change”. AndDr James Dyke– a senior lecturer in global systems at Exeter University – warned in thei newspaperthat climate change will “destroy more communities and kill more people” unless emissions are cut.

Man cools off at a cooling shelter in Portland, Oregan
Man cools off at a cooling shelter in Portland, Oregan. Credit: Sipa US /Alamy Stock Photo.

Other pieces this week also warned that the failing infrastructure highlights the need to implement adaptation measures. “Adaptation, long the neglected arm of climate policy, will need to lead our efforts to address rising global temperatures”, saidAtlanticstaff writer Robinson Meyer.

Meanwhile,微软全国有线广播电视公司called the increase indemand for air conditioninga “catch-22”, stating that “the air conditioning we increasingly need to survive is killing the planet”.

And theLos Angeles Timesran an editorial on Monday entitled, “Record-setting heatwave shows that climate change is creating hell on Earth”, which called the heatwave a “visceral reminder that the world is not moving fast enough to curtail the use of fossil fuels and reduce carbon emissions”.

The editorial also noted that both record-breaking highs and lows of temperature have causedpower outages in the USthis year. It warned:

“The nation’s infrastructure is not prepared to withstand the onslaught of climate change, which can push temperatures to extremes in both directions.”

Update: This piece was updated on 01/07/2021 and 02/07/2021 to add the latest media coverage.

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