North America is expecting the next heat wave. The high temperatures will worsen the catastrophic forest fires.
Rocky Mountains – Summer 2021 is brutal. While Germany is being hit by a catastrophic storm that has already claimed many lives and destroyed numerous livelihoods, other nations are battling historic heat waves. At the beginning of July, temperatures in all of Scandinavia climbed to unprecedented heights, Finland was sweating, Norway suffered from tropical nights.
Things got worse in North America, where in early July in the Canadian city of Lytton, an almost unbelievable record for the area of 49.6 degrees Celsius was reached before the place fell victim to the flames. It is also significant that the US weather and oceanography authority has reported 585 all-time records in the past 30 days. According to a scientific study, these extremes would have been “practically impossible” without human-made climate change.
Climate change causes heat waves
“The public should learn that climate change is already causing extreme weather conditions, especially heat waves,” the Washington Post quoted a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who was involved in the analysis. “Global warming,” says Michael Wehner, “is not our grandchildren’s problem; it is our problem, here and now. “
The next heat wave is rolling towards the USA and Canada
And it goes on and on. Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci announced the next heat wave in the Washington Post, which is expected to begin on Saturday (07/17/2021) and peak on Monday (07/19/2021). Accordingly, a new heat dome will form over the Rocky Mountains in the USA and ensure temperatures in the west of the country and in large parts of Canada that are up to 16.7 degrees Celsius above average in what is historically the hottest time of the year could lie.
The heat also presents an additional problem. Together with the persistent drought, the extreme temperatures also increase the risk of further forest fires. In any case, the west of the USA has become constantly warmer and drier in the past few decades as a result of the climate crisis, which basically acts like a fire accelerator and makes it more and more difficult to control the fire. Currently, more than 60 percent of the western US is suffering from exceptional or extreme drought.
Heat waves further increase the risk of forest fires
Twelve states are already fighting against 71 forest fires, the total area of the flames is currently around 4021 square kilometers. California is fighting with several large fires such as the “Dixie” fire, which broke out on Wednesday (July 14th, 2021) and covers more than 2250 hectares.
By far the largest fire is still the so-called bootleg fire in Oregon, which has been blazing uninterruptedly for several days and has devastated an area larger than New York City. Satellite images, which the US national weather service has now published on Twitter, also show that clouds of fire have now also formed there. The pyrocumulonimbi bring additional dangers and make fighting on the ground and in the air as good as impossible.
UPDATE: Oregon’s #BootlegFire showed explosive growth last evening, with its #smoke and #pyrocumulus clouds seen here by @NOAA’s #GOES17🛰️. This is the largest active fire burning in the U.S., and has spread to more than 212,000 acres at last report. #ORwx pic.twitter.com/YyQtbN3O2o
— NOAA Satellites – Public Affairs (@NOAASatellitePA) July 15, 2021
Heat waves cause forest fires
The US National Weather Service spoke of a “terrifying” cloud pattern and called on the public to “wish the firefighters well. It’s a difficult time for them. ”Especially because the forest fire season has only just started. It is to be expected that the situation will worsen significantly in the coming weeks and months – especially if more heat waves roll over the USA and Canada. (Christian Stör)
Rubriklistenbild: © Paul Kitagaki Jr./Imago
