• What causes the heat waves that are affecting the United States is explained here

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    What causes the heat waves that are affecting the United States is explained here

    A significant shift in water temperatures from west to east in the tropical Pacific Ocean during the previous winter, according to scientists, is the primary source of heat domes. color:black;mso-themecolor:text1">

    color:black;mso-themecolor:text1">Digital Desk: The last week saw almost all of
    the contiguous United States endure above-average temperatures, and more
    dangerously hot weather is predicted.



    color:black;mso-themecolor:text1">The European continent experienced wildfires
    and hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths due to record temperatures that
    preceded the US heat wave.



    color:black;mso-themecolor:text1">What, in the opinion of scientists, is
    producing the heat waves is explained below.



    color:black;mso-themecolor:text1">WHAT DO HEAT WAVES DO?



    mso-themecolor:text1">There is no one scientific definition of a heat wave. The
    number of days over a particular temperature or percentile above the norm can
    be used to gauge a region's climate.



    mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">THE JET STREAM AND ARCTIC WARMING



    mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">There is a shrinking difference between temperatures
    in the north and those closer to the equator because the Arctic is warming
    three to four times faster than the rest of the world.



    mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">According to Jennifer Francis, senior scientist at
    the Woodwell Climate Research Center, this is causing changes in the North
    Atlantic jet stream, which in turn causes extreme weather conditions including
    heat waves and floods.



    Heat DOMES



    color:black;mso-themecolor:text1;font-weight:normal;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">Heat
    domes, which trap heat across wide portions of the earth's surface, are caused
    by warmer waters. According to the U.S. Weather Prediction Center, the heat
    dome this weekend is extending from the southern plains of the
    Oklahoma/Arkansas region all the way to the eastern seaboard.
    mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">



    color:black;mso-themecolor:text1">A significant shift in water temperatures
    from west to east in the tropical Pacific Ocean during the previous winter,
    according to scientists, is the primary source of heat domes.



    mso-themecolor:text1">According to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric
    Administration, "while prevailing winds bring the hot air east, the
    northern shifts of the jet stream trap the air and move it toward land, where
    it sinks, resulting in heat waves."



    mso-themecolor:text1"> 



    color:black;mso-themecolor:text1;font-weight:normal;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">EL
    NIÑO AND LA NIÑA
    color:black;mso-themecolor:text1">



    mso-themecolor:text1">Every few years, the climate patterns
    https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ninonina.html known as El Niño and, less
    frequently, La Niña occur. El Niño brings warm water from the equatorial
    Pacific Ocean up to the western coast of North America, and La Niña brings
    colder water.



    mso-themecolor:text1"> 



    mso-themecolor:text1">At present, La Niña is in effect. Because summer temperatures
    trend lower during La Niña, climate scientists are concerned about what a
    serious heat wave would look like during the next El Niño, when even hotter
    summer weather could be expected.



    mso-themecolor:text1"> 



    HUMANITARIAN-INITIATED
    CLIMATE CHANGE



    mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">According to scientists, the United States is
    suffering some of the effects of global climate change brought on by the
    combustion of fossil fuels.



    mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">According to UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain,
    "Climate change is making extreme and unusual heat events both more
    intense and more prevalent, pretty much everywhere in the world."



    color:black;mso-themecolor:text1;font-weight:normal;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">"Because
    they frequently result in a large number of fatalities, heat waves are
    certainly the type of potential calamity that is most underrated. And we simply
    don't hear about it because, to put it clearly, it doesn't kill people in
    sufficiently dramatic ways. No bodies are lying in the roadway."



    color:black;mso-themecolor:text1">According to Francis of the Woodwell Center,
    climate change is causing changes in wind patterns and weather patterns around
    the planet, which "make these heat waves, like the ones we're experiencing
    right now, more intense, more persistent, and cover areas that just aren't used
    to having heat waves."



    According
    to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies researcher Alex Ruane, as the
    planet heats, "We are more easily pushed into the extreme heat categories
    by natural anomalies. You're more likely to experience multiple heat waves at
    once since we're getting closer to those thresholds. This is happening here in
    the US."