Searing heat and fire danger will quickly ramp up as a summerlike heat dome parks over the region and makes it feel like July.
Daily temperature records will tumble as sizzling early season heat from a summerlike heat dome sends thermometers skyrocketing into the triple digits in parts of California and the West this week.
The official start of summer is just a few weeks away, but it will feel like July in much of the West as temperatures climb 20 degrees or more above average, the highest temperatures of the year so far for many locations.
Excessive heat warnings are in effect for more than 17 million people in California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona this week. The warnings are the most extreme form of heat alert issued by the National Weather Service and are used when widespread, dangerous heat is expected.
The soaring temperatures are being caused by a heat dome, a large area of high pressure that parks over an area, traps air and heats it with abundant sunshine for days or weeks. The resulting heat becomes more intense the longer a heat dome lasts.
That’s sort of like saying, yes all human and most animal and plant life will perish in a horrible and entirely preventable human-made catastrophe, but the rocks will be okay.
I mean, it’s a lot like saying that. Which - yeah, okay.
Once humans stop dumping green house gasses into the environment (after we're dead), nature will correct itself. The earth has been through several mass extinction events, and keeps on recovering.
Microorganisms will survive, at the very least, so life on the planet will keep on trucking.
Sure, sure. Cause for celebration. It’s all gonna be fine. For many, or at least some, microorganisms. The self-inflicted fiery cataclysm that kills everything else - not such a big deal after all.
‘’don’t seem to grasp”? Fuck you. You goddamned prick who the fuck are you - king of expressions? Don’t seem to grasp. Fucking pinheaded shit-for-brains idiot.
Yes, absolutely, you are right. The comments in this thread and elsewhere are that Earth will be fine. Our current trajectory doesn't bode well for that assertion.
Earth will be fine. This isn't the first time global warming has happened, and life survived that and many other mass extinction events. Most larger animals won't survive, but enough would for life to keep going.
Without humans pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the earth will eventually return to normal. It might take several million years, but that's nothing considering there's like 4b years before the sun gets big enough to destroy everything.
Thank you for the response. This isn't my field of study but my Astronomy professor back in college pointed to Venus as a possible outcome for Earth if we continued with our current emissions. I know atmospheric CO2 levels in the past were much higher on Earth but I'm truthfully not sure I understand what mechanisms Earth has that Venus lacked. I'm not trying to argue the point; really, I just want to learn.
Lastly, I love your username. It sounds delightful.
Venus has an atmosphere that's 96.5% CO2. For comparison, earth's atmosphere has 0.04% CO2.
Now, earth will likely see an increase in that number, and surface conditions will get a lot worse, but humans will be dead long before we even get close to venus.
Life is very tenacious, so it's highly unlikely that humans will wipe it out completely with climate change.
At the least extremophiles (organisms that exist in conditions that life shouldn't be able to exist in, like deep sea volcanic vents) will survive, and evolution will do it's thing again.
Working to combat climate change has nothing to do with saving the earth as a whole; it's too save the conditions that are favorable for us to survive in.
Earth will. We and the majority of the current forms of life not so much. The earth has been considerably hotter than now and with considerably more co2. It's the rate of change that's the real issue for both us and most life.
Basically every volcano on earth lit up and choked the entire planet with toxic air, acid rain, continental fires, etc. Life survived that, it'll survive humanity's death throes.
Humans also survive the Ice age. I don't think humans will get wiped out by climate change either just massively decreased in population.
We know how to make it cold and we know how to generate power without burning things we pull out of the ground. None of this needs to be happening it's just happening because people are idiots and greedy but when push comes to shove they'll have to stop or die, either way they stop. Then everyone else can survive.
It might be more convenient to just update some laws though.