Soumya Karlamangla
08/31/2021 12:01 PM
Clarín.com
The New York Times International Weekly
Updated 08/31/2021 12:01 PM
There's a dark joke about this year's extreme temperatures that has haunted me for weeks:
This is the coldest summer of the rest of our lives.
The prospect is nothing short of
terrifying
considering what this year has brought about.
Tourists next to the thermometer that reads 54 degrees in Death Valley National Park, California .. Photo by Patrick T. FALLON / AFP.
In June, high temperatures in the Pacific Northwest killed
up to 600 people.
In recent weeks, several hikers have been found dead in California, most likely from temperatures above 38 degrees.
Globally, July was
the hottest month in human history
.
So from my apartment in Los Angeles, which regularly crosses 30 degrees indoors, I called up some climate scientists and asked them, "Are all the next summers going to be even hotter than this?"
The short answer was: Yes, generally.
Vijay Limaye, a climate and health scientist
with the Natural Resources Defense Council
, told me that each recent decade has been unequivocally warmer than the last, so future years are likely to
continue to break
heat
records
.
"We should act like it's going to be like this: that this will be the coldest summer when we look ahead," he said.
A United Nations report this month concludes that the Earth is poised to intensify global warming over the next 30 years because countries have
long
delayed
reducing their fossil fuel emissions.
Preventing further warming is at hand, but would require an
immediate and coordinated global effort
, according to the report.
The effects of climate change are visible at the local level.
The average July temperature in Los Angeles has risen more than two degrees since the 1960s, as has Boston, Washington DC, Atlanta, and other cities.
And it will probably keep going up.
In Los Angeles County in 1990, the annual mean high temperature - an average of the high for each day - was 23 degrees.
In 2090, the average maximum temperature will be between 27 and 28 degrees, according to state projections.
"The weather your kids are going to experience is unlike any weather you've ever experienced," says Paul Ullrich, UC Davis professor of regional and global climate modeling.
"There was no chance in your life for the types of temperature your kids are going to experience on average."
But still, that doesn't mean that 2022 in your city is definitely going to be warmer than 2021 has been.
There are
year-to-year
fluctuations
within this general warming, especially at the local level.
In California, for example, the
El Niño
weather phenomenon
could make for an
unusually cold
year
.
"It's very important not to create these falsely simplistic expectations for the public," said Julien Emile-Geay, a climate scientist at the University of Southern California.
"If we put the expectation that everything is gradually warming up, and then next year is colder, people will say, 'Ha ha, climate change doesn't exist.
Here's another way to think about this:
The warmest year on record in the world was 2016, followed by 2020, so it's
not like every year in a row
is warmer than the last.
But the general trend is clear.
The seven warmest years on Earth occurred in the last seven years.
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