The record-breaking heat that has pushed California's electrical grid to the breaking point for more than a week is almost over but it's a sign of things to come
FILE - A helicopter drops water on the Fairview Fire burning on a hillside Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022, near Hemet, Calif. Scientists say a warming planet will lead to hotter, longer and more wildfire-plagued heat waves. LOS ANGELES — — Californians sweated it out amid a record-breaking heat wave entering its 10th day Friday that has helped fuel deadly wildfires and pushed energy supplies to the brink of daily power outages.
California is just the latest casualty in a year of sometimes deadly heat waves that began in Pakistan and India this spring and swept across parts of the Northern Hemisphere, including China, Europe and others areas of the U.S. Temperatures hit an all-time high in Sacramento of 116 degrees on Tuesday. Many other locations hit record highs for September and even more set daily high marks.
“If we’re going to build a statue to anybody in the West, it will be a Willis Carrier,” said Bill Patzert, retired climatologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, about the inventor of the air conditioner. “Really large areas of Southern California would essentially be unlivable without air conditioning.”
“Part of the country that’s getting hit worst is the Southwest and Western United States,” Overpeck said. “It is a global poster child for the climate crisis. And this year, this summer, it’s really the Northern Hemisphere has been just an unusually hot and wildfire plagued hemisphere.”