The unprecedented Pacific Northwest heatwave of June 2021.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36759624.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-36289-3 and PMC identifier 9910268.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
In late June 2021 a heatwave of unprecedented magnitude impacted the Pacific Northwest region of Canada and the United States. Many locations broke all-time maximum temperature records by more than 5 °C, and the Canadian national temperature record was broken by 4.6 °C, with a new record temperature of 49.6 °C. Here, we provide a comprehensive summary of this event and its impacts. Upstream diabatic heating played a key role in the magnitude of this anomaly. Weather forecasts provided advanced notice of the event, while sub-seasonal forecasts showed an increased likelihood of a heat extreme with lead times of 10-20 days. The impacts of this event were catastrophic, including hundreds of attributable deaths across the Pacific Northwest, mass-mortalities of marine life, reduced crop and fruit yields, river flooding from rapid snow and glacier melt, and a substantial increase in wildfires-the latter contributing to landslides in the months following. These impacts provide examples we can learn from and a vivid depiction of how climate change can be so devastating.