Climate Change Made Killer Heat Wave In Mexico, Southwest US Even Warmer And 35 Times More Likely

Washington — According to a new flash study, human-caused climate change increased the likelihood of this month’s deadly heat in the Southwestern United States, Mexico, and Central America.

Sizzling daytime temperatures that caused heat stroke in parts of the United States were 35 times more likely and 2.5 degrees hotter (1.4 degrees Celsius) as a result of warming caused by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists who conduct rapid and non-peer reviewed climate attribution studies, calculated Thursday.

“It’s an oven here; you can’t stay here,” 82-year-old Margarita Salazar Pérez of Veracruz, Mexico, remarked from her home without air conditioning. Last week, the Sonoran Desert reached 125 degrees (51.9 degrees Celsius), the hottest day in Mexican history, according to research co-author Shel Winkley, a Climate Central meteorologist.

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Climate Change Made Killer Heat Wave In Mexico, Southwest US Even Warmer And 35 Times More Likely

According to Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London who leads the attribution study team, this heat wave was deadly because it was significantly worse at night. According to her, climate change has increased nighttime temperatures by 2.9 degrees (1.6 degrees Celsius) and the likelihood of extraordinary evening heat by 200 times.

Salazar Pérez explained that there hasn’t been any cold air at night like people are used to. Doctors think cooler night temperatures are essential for surviving a heat wave.

The World Weather Attribution team reports that at least 125 people have died so far.

“This is clearly related to climate change, the level of intensity that we are seeing, these risks,” said research co-author Karina Izquierdo, a Red Cross and Red Crescent Climate Centre urban advisor located in Mexico City.

The most concerning aspect of this heat wave, which is still heating the North American continent, is that it is no longer considered unusual, according to Otto. The group’s previous studies had looked at heat so intense that it was unthinkable without climate change, but this heat wave was not so much.

“From a weather perspective, it wasn’t uncommon, but the consequences were actually very severe,” Otto told The Associated Press in an interview.

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Climate Change Made Killer Heat Wave In Mexico, Southwest US Even Warmer And 35 Times More Likely

“The changes we have seen in the last 20 years, which feels like just yesterday, are so strong,” Otto told me. Her research discovered that this heat wave is now four times more likely to occur than in 2000, when temperatures were roughly a degree (0.5 Celsius) lower than they are now. “It seems sort of far away and a different world.”

While other organizations of worldwide scientists — and the global carbon emissions reduction target agreed by governments in the 2015 Paris climate agreement — relate to warming since pre-industrial times in the mid-nineteenth century, Otto believes comparing what is happening now to the year 2000 is more dramatic.

“We’re looking at a shifting baseline – what was once extreme but rare is becoming increasingly common,” said University of Southern California Marine Studies Chair Carly Kenkel, who did not participate in the attribution team’s research. She stated that the analysis represents “the logical conclusion based on the data.”

The study examined a wide range of the continent, including southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, and Honduras, as well as the hottest five consecutive days and nights. Most of the area experienced those five days from June 3 to 7 and those five nights from June 5 to 9, but peak heat began on May 26 in a few areas, according to Otto.

On June 4, for example, San Angelo, Texas, set a record high temperature of 111 degrees (43.8 Celsius). According to the National Weather Service, from June 2 to June 6, the night temperature at Corpus Christi airport never went below 80 degrees (26.7 degrees Celsius), a record each night, with two days when the thermometer never dropped below 85 degrees (29.4 degrees Celsius).

According to the National Centre for Environmental Information, between June 1 and June 15, more than 1,200 daytime high-temperature records and almost 1,800 nighttime high-temperature records were tied or broken in the United States.

The attribution team utilized current and prior temperature observations to compare what is happening now to what happened in previous heat waves. They then used the scientifically acknowledged method of comparing models of a hypothetical world without human-caused climate change to present reality to determine how much global warming contributed to the 2024 heat wave.

The immediate meteorological culprit was a high-pressure system camped over central Mexico, which hindered cooling storms and clouds before moving to the Southwest of the United States, which is now delivering heat to the East, according to Winkley. Tropical Storm Alberto emerged on Wednesday and is expected to bring rain to northern Mexico and southern Texas, potentially leading to flooding.

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Climate Change Made Killer Heat Wave In Mexico, Southwest US Even Warmer And 35 Times More Likely

For months, drought, water shortages, and extreme heat have plagued Mexico and other regions. Due to the warmth, monkeys in Mexico have started dropping from trees.

According to Izquierdo and Kenkel, the current heat wave “exacerbates existing inequalities” between rich and poor in the Americas. The inequalities become most obvious in the night heat, as the capacity to cool down with central air conditioning is determined by how financially secure individuals are, according to Kenkel.

That means Salazar Pérez has been very uncomfortable during this heat wave.

SOURCE – (AP)