Heat waves have hit huge swathes of the US this summer, putting nearly a third of the population under some sort of heat advisory and sending temperatures as high as 46 degrees Celsius in parts of the Great Plains. Hundreds of heat records have been broken, from Boston, Massachusetts, which reached 37 degrees Celsius, to Portland, Oregon, which reached 38.9 degrees on Tuesday. However, global warming may plunge many parts of the U.S. into the kind of extreme temperatures previously thought unimaginable, shifting their climate over the long term to conditions now common in places further south or even overseas. An analysis of temperature trends by Climate Central found that summer temperatures in 2100 for many cities will more closely resemble conditions further south, 437 miles south on average, with Washington DC having summers more like Austin’s Texas.” Boston is more like Philadelphia. and Billings, Montana, which looks like El Paso, Texas. Map of four US cities, with lines connecting them to cities in the Middle East. Some US cities could move to the kind of climate that cities in other countries are now facing, such as Los Angeles being more like Tuxpan in Mexico. A select few can take an epic climate journey to the end of the century, with Austin summers becoming like present-day Dubai, Phoenix resembling Saudi Arabia, and Las Vegas resembling Kuwait. “The real risks will be in heat waves that are now occasionally extreme that will start to last longer,” said Peter Girard, a spokesman for Climate Central, a research organization made up of climate scientists and communications scientists. “Such heatwaves will become normal and the risks will be much greater. There will be people who have never needed air conditioning who will deal with it. It can quickly go from uncomfortable to dangerous.” The researchers compiled temperature data from 1990 to 2020 to determine today’s “normal” temperature and looked at 20 different temperature projections this century under different climate change scenarios. They decided to compare the status quo with a scenario where planet-warming emissions are not radically reduced and the global average temperature rises by about 3.6 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. List of 16 US cities and cities in the Middle East that could be similar to 2100 summer temperatures. The world has already warmed by about 1.2 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, a situation that has already helped fuel the kind of intense heat waves and wildfires seen recently in the US and Europe. “Extreme heat is a silent killer, yet it affects more Americans than any other weather emergency, particularly our nation’s most vulnerable,” said Gina McCarthy, White House climate adviser. Many analysts expect temperature rise to be limited to below 3.6 degrees Celsius, due to increased use of renewable energy sources, but Girard said even lower levels of warming will cause changes in the climate patterns of US cities. “Regardless of the scenario, this is going to be a short-term challenge almost everywhere,” he said. “Cutting emissions will slow the rise in temperatures and give governments and cities more time to take action to keep people safe.”
