The deadly heat wave that roasted the Pacific Northwest and western Canada was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change that added a few extra degrees to the record-smashing temperatures, a new quick scientific analysis found.
An international team of 27 scientists calculated that climate change increased chances of the extreme heat occurring by at least 150 times, but likely much more.
The study, not yet peer reviewed, said that before the industrial era, the region s late June triple-digit heat was the type that would not have happened in human civilization. And even in today’s warming world, it said, the heat was a once-in-a-millennium event.
Seth Borenstein
FILE - In this Wednesday, June 30, 2021 file photo, a U.S. flag flies with the sun in the background in downtown Seattle. According to a study released on Wednesday, July 7, 2021, the deadly heat wave that roasted the Pacific Northwest and western Canada âwas virtually impossible without human-caused climate changeâ which also added a few extra degrees to the record-smashing warmth. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File) July 07, 2021 - 4:44 PM
The deadly heat wave that roasted the Pacific Northwest and western Canada was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change that added a few extra degrees to the record-smashing temperatures, a new quick scientific analysis found.
The study also found that in the Pacific Northwest and Canada climate change was responsible for about 3.6 degrees (2 degrees Celsius) of the heat shock. Those few degrees make a big difference in human health, said study co-author Kristie Ebi, a professor at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the University of Washington.
“This study is telling us climate change is killing people,” said Ebi, who endured the blistering heat in Seattle. She said it will be many months before a death toll can be calculated from June s blast of heat but it’s likely to be hundreds or thousands. “Heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer of Americans.”
As global COVID-19 deaths top 4 million, a suicide in Peru
AREQUIPA, Peru (AP) â On the last day of Javier Vilca s life, his wife stood outside a hospital window with a teddy bear, red balloons and a box of chocolates to celebrate his birthday, and held up a giant, hand-scrawled sign that read: âDon t give up. You re the best man in the world.â
Minutes later, Vilca, a 43-year-old struggling radio journalist who had battled depression, jumped four stories to his death â the fifth suicide by a COVID-19 patient at Peru s overwhelmed Honorio Delgado hospital since the pandemic began.
Vilca became yet another symbol of the despair caused by the coronavirus and the stark and seemingly growing inequities exposed by COVID-19 on its way to a worldwide death toll of 4 million, a milestone recorded Wednesday by Johns Hopkins University.
Global COVID-19 deaths hit 4 million amid rush to vaccinate
The global death toll from COVID-19 eclipsed 4 million Wednesday as the crisis increasingly becomes a race between the vaccine and the highly contagious delta variant.
The tally of lives lost over the past year and a half, as compiled from official sources by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the number of people killed in battle in all of the world s wars since 1982, according to estimates from the Peace Research Institute Oslo.
The toll is three times the number of people killed in traffic accidents around the globe every year. It is about equal to the population of Los Angeles or the nation of Georgia. It is equivalent to more than half of Hong Kong or close to 50% of New York City.