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Since Scientific American was one of the first to push false articles (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unprecedented-heat-wave-in-pacific-northwest-d

Since Scientific American was one of the first to push false articles (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unprecedented-heat-wave-in-pacific-northwest-driven-by-climate-change/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unprecedented-hea...) claiming the PNW heatwave was primarily caused by climate change, I’m sharing this analysis from a UW Professor who is considered to be the foremost expert on northwest climate, where he shows that the event was less due to climate change and more due to a rare mix of factors (a black swan event). In other posts he mentions the record breaking event would have taken place even without climate change, but that climate change contributed a few degrees to the peak temperatures. The attribution study he is critiquing itself claims this recent event was a 1 in 1000 years event even with climate change: https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/flawed-heatwave-report-leads-to-false.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/flawed-heatwave-repor... As others have mentioned it is unclear if a billion creatures is significant or not. But regardless this isn’t going to be a seasonal event.

billjings 5y ago
"In other posts he mentions the record breaking event would have taken place even without climate change, but that climate change contributed a few degrees to the peak temperatures." The reason that we refer to this phenomenon as climate change now and not global warming is that average temperature doesn't accurately capture the ways that the climate will change as it warms. We will also experience more outlier events, more heat waves and bizarre cold snaps. This is an excellent example of the former; the shift of the Arctic air off of the polar regions south produces other anomalies. But the term "climate change" is intended to capture the increased frequencies of all these kinds of anomalous events, not just the steady increase in average temperature.

billjings 5y ago

"In other posts he mentions the record breaking event would have taken place even without climate change, but that climate change contributed a few degrees to the peak temperatures." The reason that we refer to this phenomenon as climate change now and not global warming is that average temperature doesn't accurately capture the ways that the climate will change as it warms. We will also experience more outlier events, more heat waves and bizarre cold snaps. This is an excellent example of the former; the shift of the Arctic air off of the polar regions south produces other anomalies. But the term "climate change" is intended to capture the increased frequencies of all these kinds of anomalous events, not just the steady increase in average temperature.