A heat dome could have been the cause of the 2018 Camp Fire, which burned the town of Paradise, California to the ground. Everyone lost their home, and had to find emergency “housing.” Many escaped to nearby town of Chico. Residents welcomed the survivors with open arms. Chico’s population of 100,000 went up by 20,000 nearly overnight. Most of the survivors had to live in unsheltered (unhoused) conditions.

At first, there was a housing boom, but, new constructions catered to middle to upper income individuals and families. As a result, when the pandemic hit, the unhoused became campers in Chico and lived on the edge of famine, poverty, and illness. The initial welcoming spirit of Chico’s residents flipped. Now, instead of compassion, there is “deterrence.” People burned out of their homes by the Camp Fire, are being burned again by the lack of support and funding that is needed in Chico.¹

Climate change is the cause of the repressive heat and fires that unfortunately have become common place in the West. Climate change accelerated the conditions that burned Paradise.

The June ’21 heat wave was the most anomalous extreme heat event observed on Earth since records began two centuries ago.²

Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest and British Columbia experienced Fahrenheit temperatures as high as 121 degrees on June 29. And today, although not located in the NW, Death Valley will approach temperatures of over 130 degrees Fahrenheit. The extreme temperatures in the NW and BC, an all-time heat record in the region, led to wildfires.

Heat Domes

Scientists visualize the heat wave in the NW as a heat dome, which is a large area of ridges of high pressure. Notice in the diagram of the heat dome that hot air rises vertically into the atmosphere and then the high pressure ridges push the hot air down toward the ground. Clouds are pushed away by the high pressure, meaning that the sky is clear with hot air being pushed toward people living on the surface of the Earth.

This is serious, especially for such northern regions as the NW Pacific. People are more vulnerable to high temperatures, heat exhaustion and heat stroke due to less air conditioning in buildings and homes

According to scientists, the heat wave of the intensity last month required weather systems and winds to align, but they also point out that it could not have been this extreme without human-caused climate change.

July Heat

Even this week, the temperature outlook in the Pacific NW calls for higher than normal temperatures. For example, Medford, Oregon will experience temperatures in the 90s and as high as 101 F between now and July 23. For the next 10 days, temperatures will reach dangerous levels, and put many people, especially those who outside, such as farm and construction workers. Very little is done to protect them, and according to recent data, farm workers suffer 20 times more than the rate of people who have protection.

Abrupt and extreme climate changes from global warming pose the greatest risks to the environment. The modeling research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab is ongoing to understand the complexity of the effects of climate change.⁴

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¹ Klein, N. (7 May 2021). A Climate Dystopia in Northern California. The Intercept.

² Cappucci, M. (7 July 2021). Pacific Northwest heat wave was ‘virtually impossible without climate change, scientists find. Washington Post.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Climate modeling. Earth and Environmental Sciences Area, Berkeley Lab. https://eesa.lbl.gov/programs/climate-modeling/

Opening Photo by Kseniia Zaitseva on Unsplash