http://i.imgur.com/EnrWs9g.png
Phoenix's extreme heatwave tests the limits of survival
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/14/phoenix-heatwave-summer-extreme-weather-arizona
That they grow water intense irrigated crops like lawn grass and alfalfa in this climate is middle finger to all sanity.
>grass and alfalfa
I was stunned when I first heard that. We're going to have to change what we grow and where. I've read the corn belt in the Midwest US is going to have to move North which means farmers in some places are going to need new crops. Right now farmers are trying to adapt by planting different hybrid seeds that can stand the heat and less ground moisture but I don't know how long that will hold. I'm sure the big agricultural collages are looking into this but I'm not sure agribusiness is.
I was just in a little town in the high desert in Nevada yesterday and was surprised by how green they kept their grasses.
>>grass and alfalfa
Much of which gets shipped to China because we don't produce anything else to put in all those container ships that come our way full of manufactured goods. Instead of sending them back empty, they can make a little from alfalfa.
It comes down to water for agriculture being priced way below cost in the American West. If priced according to actual costs, then beef would get much more expensive and it might not be worth shipping alfalfa to China.
Phoenix breaks US city records after hitting at least 110F for 19th straight day
'We are damned fools': scientist who sounded climate alarm in 80s warns of worse to come | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/19/climate-crisis-james-hansen-scientist-warning
This just in from Phoenix:
Arizona's sweltering summer could set new record for most heat-associated deaths in big metro
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/arizonas-sweltering-summer-could-set-new-record-for-most-heat-associated-deaths-in-big-metro/articleshow/103891638.cms
I bet there are places where the death rate was higher, but either the record keeping was bad or they are not considered metro areas or both.
I wonder for example how good the records are for ag and construction in California and Dubai.
Arizona Community Hits 110 Degrees, Breaking Record
https://www.newser.com/story/385773/arizona-community-hits-110-degrees-breaking-record.html
This heat done is honestly freaking people out. It has been 30+ degrees warmer than usual here. I am thankful for being on the relatively mild climate near the coast, but it still reached 94 degrees this week.
The ski area near us has kept daily temperature records going back at least 50 years, but I think back to the 1930s. The ranger who records the temps currently scanned the logbooks and found that the temperature two days ago was the highest ever recorded when the ski area was open.
The temperature went even higher the next day, but due to rapid melting, they closed the ski area for the season.
We had 4 feet on the ground a couple weeks ago at the house. Now we have flowers blooming. I've never seen it melt so fast.
>> melt so fast
So where does it go? Does it cause flooding someplace?
>but it's a dry heat
In 1994, I was in Phoenix when it was 118f. How high is too high for AZ cities?
AU 2019: Temperature hits 49.9C (121.8f) and roads melt in remote SA ahead of catastrophic fire conditions - ABC News
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-20/catastrophic-fire-conditions-forecast-in-sa-as-temperatures-soar/11815346?future=true&pfmredir=sm
Quote from: buckworks on March 20, 2026, 09:10:25 PM>> melt so fast
So where does it go? Does it cause flooding someplace?
It goes downhill and generally things don't flood unless there is a big snowpack that lasts into June so that you still have a big surface area covered in snow AND temperatures probably 10 degrees warmer than what we've been having.
All the historically big floods have happened from late November to early January. It's hard to generate enough flow from snowmelt alone, but it did happen in 2023 that we had minor flooding.
To put it in perspective, current flow at the gauging station is just under 4,000 cubic feet per second. During the January 1, 1997, flood, it was at 25,000 cfs. That put water levels about 6 feet over the road and flooded many structures, destroyed some sections of road and destroyed large sections of the sewage system.
400 people treated for heat-related illness at Arizona airshow as record temperatures bake the West - ABC News
https://abcnews.com/US/400-people-sickened-arizona-airshow-record-heat-bakes/story?id=131300971
> Arizona
"But it's a dry heat."
> flooding
Forgot to mention that when it had melted down to about 3 feet, I took a cubic foot out of the center of the column and weighed it. 15 pounds.
So the column weighed roughly 45 pounds (probably 40 pounds because the top was still very light). Roughly speaking, that's 8 inches of water. So if that melts totally in 16 days, that's equivalent to half an inch a day of rain flowing into the creeks, but like the rain is only falling over areas covered in snow. So perhaps like a storm that drops 1/4 inch over the the whole area.
In other words, we need a lot more snow and a lot higher temperatures before flooding is a concern
A Once-in-a-4,433-Year Heat Wave Is Hitting the Western U.S. - Heatmap News
https://heatmap.news/climate/march-heat-wave
>> "This year, at least for precipitation, it's been really quite good [in California],"
But... as he says, too warm. Way too much of that fell as rain. So take snow drought and combine that with record-warm spring and that doesn't leave much runoff to spin turbines this summer.
It's one that that gets missed in the criticism that solar is intermittent. In the SW, you need the most power precisely when you have the most sun. It's a different calculation in the cold and cloudy north where energy consumption (though not necessarily electricity given the current mix), peaks in cold weather.
QuoteBoth were historically bad fire seasons: In 2005, a then-record 8.7 million acres burned, and in 2015, the U.S. broke more than 10 million acres burned for the first time.
Correction: for the first time since modern record keeping. Fire ecologists believe that seasonal fires typically burned 6-12 million acres before 1800 (i.e. before Euro-Americans started doing fire suppression)