LOS ANGELES — As California awakens to the worsening risk of extreme climate events, researchers are shedding new light on last year's anomalous and extreme Pacific Northwest heat wave. One study published this week said such heat waves could become 20 times more likely to occur if current carbon emissions continue unabated. Another said they may also be nearly 10 degrees hotter.
The nine-day event in late June and early July 2021 seared parts of Northern California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, where Canada saw its highest temperature on record, 121.3 degrees. The heat wave claimed hundreds of lives, sparked several devastating wildfires and killed an estimated 1 billion sea creatures.
Such an event would have been "virtually impossible" in the 1950s, but atmospheric warming has already increased its probability to about a 0.5% chance per year, according to one study out of Columbia University, published Thursday in the journal Nature Climate Change. Should warming surpass 2 degrees Celsius — the upper limit set by the International Panel on Climate Change — that probability could soar to a 10% chance per year as soon as 2050.
