Natural Disaster Series – Heat waves
How is climate change impacting heat waves?
Heat waves have been the focus of many American news outlets lately, due to the devastating wildfires being seen in California. Excessive heat is not new to the area, yet it is becoming more frequent and intense. Heat waves have been popping up more, and more in literature in recent years1. As Bowman et al. (2017) express; drought, and wildfires are apart of natural cycles on earth. However, they also denote that these events are increasing at alarming rates, with increases in occurrence in these areas at 20-50% 2 . Not only is the land being affected by these heat waves, but effects are also being observed in our lakes3. The intensity and duration of heatwaves in lakes has and is projected to go up exceptionally high. This most likely will be detrimental to those ecosystems. Most life forms have a set range of temperature that they work best in. With this shift from the norm, many aquatic species are at risk. Climate change has a clear relationship to these events due to the the average temperature of the globe increasing. This amplifies the already intense effects of heat waves occurring naturally, and produces them in areas which usually do not. If you would like clarification, or more on a topic, comment and let me know down below!
For references see here!
References:
1) Marx W, Haunschild R, Bornmann L. 2021. Heat waves: a hot topic in climate change research. Theoretical and Applied Climatology. 146(1-2):781–800. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-021-03758-y. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00704-021-03758-y.
2) Bowman DMJS, Williamson GJ, Abatzoglou JT, Kolden CA, Cochrane MA, Smith AMS. 2017. Human exposure and sensitivity to globally extreme wildfire events. Nature Ecology & Evolution. 1(3):1–6. doi:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-016-0058. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-016-0058.
3) Woolway RI, Jennings E, Shatwell T, Golub M, Pierson DC, Maberly SC. 2021. Lake heatwaves under climate change. Nature. 589(7842):402–407. doi:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-03119-1. [accessed 2021 Jan 27]. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03119-1.