Study predicts 120 degree heat wave
WASHINGTON (AP) - July 4, 2008 In a few decades, people will look back at those heat waves
"and we will laugh," said Andreas Sterl, author of a new study.
"We will find (those temperatures) lovely and cool."
Sterl's computer model shows that by the end of the century,
high temperatures for once-in-a-generation heat waves will rise
twice as fast as everyday average temperatures. Chicago, for
example, would reach 115 degrees in such an event by 2100. Paris
heat waves could near 109 with Lyon coming closer to 114.
Sterl, who is with the Royal Netherlands Meteorological
Institute, projects temperatures for rare heat waves around the
world in a study soon to be published in the journal Geophysical
Research Letters.
His numbers are blistering because of the drying-out effect of a
warming world. Most global warming research focuses on average
daily temperatures instead of these extremes, which cause greater
damage.
His study projects a peak of 117 for Los Angeles and 110 for
Atlanta by 2100; that's 5 degrees higher than the current records
for those cities. Kansas City faces the prospect of a 116-degree
heat wave, with its current all-time high at 109, according to the
National Climactic Data Center.
A few cities, such as Phoenix, which once hit 122 degrees and is
projected to have heat waves of 120, have already reached these
extreme temperatures once or twice. But they would be hitting those
numbers a little more often as the world heats up over time. For
New York, it would only be a slight jump from the all-time record
of 104 at John F. Kennedy Airport to the projected 106.
It could be worse. Delhi, India is expected to hit 120 degrees;
Belem, Brazil, 121, and Baghdad, 122.
Those figures make sense, Ken Kunkel, a top Midwestern climate
scientist and interim director of the Illinois Water Survey.
These are temperatures that are dangerous, said University of
Wisconsin environmental health professor Dr. Jonathan Patz.
"Extreme temperature puts a huge demand on the body, especially
anyone with heart problems," Patz said. "The elderly are the most
vulnerable because they don't sense temperature as well."
And it's not just at the end of the century. By 2050, heat waves
will be 3 to 5 degrees hotter than now "and probably be
longer-lasting," Sterl said.
By mid-century, southern France's extreme heat waves should be
around 111 degrees and then near 118 by the end of the century,
Sterl's climate models predict. In the 1990s, that region's extreme
heat wave peaked at 104 degrees; in the 1950s, the worst heat wave
peaked around 91 degrees, according to Sterl.