Why are Canada and North America so hot this year?
Parts of Canada, the US Pacific Northwest and the Arctic Circle are suffering sweltering heatwaves that have already caused dozens of sudden deaths. The baking conditions in regions better known for their hard winters are breaking local temperature records and making everyday life intolerable, rendering it almost impossible to venture away from air conditioning, as one British Columbia resident toldThe Globe and Mail. The phenomenon is being attributed by meteorologists to a heat dome lingering over the northern hemisphere and trapping concentrations of hot air in place. Climate scientists say this is evidence of the ever-worsening climate crisis. In Canada, the worst affected areas are the western provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, as well as parts of Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. Canadas environment department has issued heat warnings for all of them. The country recorded its all-time highest temperature for the third day in a row on Tuesday when the mercury hit a staggering 49.5C in Lytton, British Columbia. Temperatures in the Vancouver area reached just under 32C on Monday but with the humidity it felt closer to 40C in areas that are not near water, according to Environment Canada. The citys police force reported 130 sudden deaths since Friday, with elderly people or those with underlying health conditions accounting for the majority of lives lost. In the US, Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, are currently sweltering in the heat  recording temperatures well above 37.8C on Monday  as is Siberia in northern Russia. Land temperature in the Arctic Circle region has peaked at 48C in recent days, in what has been described as a persistent heatwave in an area increasingly hit by wildfires and above-average temperatures. The European Unions Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service said land surface temperature across Siberia had widely exceeded 35C on the first day of summer on 20 June. Saskylakh, an Arctic town, recorded 31.9C on that date, according to Copernicus, the small communitys hottest temperature before the summer solstice since 1936. The EU satellites also found land surface temperatures peaking at 48C near the town of Verkhojansk, 43C in Govorovo and 37C in Saskylah on 20 June. That follows a temperature rise above 30C in parts of the Arctic in May, much higher than average for the time of year. Climate scientists described it as mind boggling. They warn that the rising temperatures are causing the ice and permafrost to melt, which in turn causes previously trapped methane to be released into the atmosphere and contributes to global heating. The UK Met Office defines a heatwave as an extended period of hot weather relative to the expected conditions of the area at that time of year, which may be accompanied by high humidity. It goes on to explain that heatwaves are common during summer months when high pressure is most likely to build up. Heat waves are slow moving and can linger, typically lasting for days but sometimes for weeks. The worlds most prominent climate activist Greta Thunberg has been sounding the alarm about the heatwaves. She tweeted on Tuesday: Heat records are usually broken by decimals, like a tenth of a degree. And not in June...This heatwave is just getting started.  Zeke Hausfather, a California-based scientist at the climate data NGO Berkeley Earth, said the US Pacific Northwest has warmed by about 1.7C in the last half-century and commented: In a world without climate change, this still would have been a really extreme heatwave. This is worse than the same event would have been 50 years ago, and notably so.  Also explicit in connecting the phenomenon with the climate crisis was Washington Governor Jay Inslee, a former Democratic presidential candidate who ran on a green platform. He told MSNBC: This is the beginning of a permanent emergency. We have to tackle the source of this problem, which is climate change.  His counterpart in British Columbia, John Horgan, said the hottest week the province had ever experienced had led to disastrous consequences for families and for communities. Climate scientists say global warming has increased the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events like heatwaves. However, they stress that it is usually difficult to link any one event to the earths increasing temperature, which is on course to rise 3C by 2100 without global action to prevent it. Meteorologist and author Eric Holthaus notes: Climate change is not just warming the surface of the planet, its warming earths entire troposphere  the lowest layer of the atmosphere where all our weather occurs. Thats particularly true in mountainous areas, where temperatures are rising even faster than elsewhere. When snow and ice recedes or even disappears from mountains, the bare soil beneath can warm unimpeded.  He says that this effect, coupled with extreme drought in the western and southern US states of Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado, is enabling the heat dome. Dry, descending air rushing down the mountain slopes offshore towards the ocean created a literal pressure cooker, sending temperatures soaring to never-before-seen values, he writes in The Guardian. Heatwaves and extreme weather events are expected to continue in the coming years as some of the changes to earths systems are now baked in from decades of greenhouse gas emissions, largely from the burning of fossil fuels, in the atmosphere. However nations can take steps to adapt by increasing funding for extreme weather preparedness and raising public awareness of what steps to take and where they can seek refuge when deadly heat hits.