"The sun's hot"
Today is the summer solstice, or the first official day of summer. It is the longest day of the year and the sun will shine for 15 hours. The news is going on about this heat dome in the Midwest and Northeast that has pushed the daily highs above 90 °F all week. American Electric Power (AEP) and its distributor PJM Interconnection have issued peak energy usage alerts every day and are offering bill credits to anyone willing to shut off their air conditioner in the afternoons to reduce the demand on the electricity grid. Here in Indiana we have had it easy. The temperature in South America climbed so high this spring that Mexico's iconic howler monkeys fell from the trees dead from heat exhaustion. My wife and I had the privilege of seeing these monkeys in 2019 in Belize on our honeymoon. This year India recorded its hottest temperature ever of 49.9 °C (121.8 °F). 550 hajj pilgrims have died in Mecca so far from 50 °C (122 °F) heat. My wife’s response whenever I get on a tangent about the heat or Earth’s climate is an unsympathetic, but humorous, “The sun’s hot.”
This week's heat and humidity have inspired me to reflect on the Earth’s climate. This also gives me something to do while I sit in a dark and un-air-conditioned apartment collecting energy credits. Luckily for me my wife works second shift so I am free to shut the air conditioner off while she is away in the evening. I could never get away with this otherwise.
I went through many different phases of dream jobs as a child. I was highly impressionable by the movies of the time. My first dream job was to become a paleontologist thanks to the 1993 film Jurassic Park, but after I saw the 1996 movie Twister starring Bill Paxton and Night of the Twisters by Timothy Bond that same year, I quickly switched to wanting to become a meteorologist. These were the days before the internet so I had to learn all I could about paleontology and meteorology from books or magazines that could be obtained within a bicycle ride to the library or from documentaries on TV. Words like pachycephalosaurus and cumulonimbus rolled off my tongue easier than more practical vocabulary for a child. I even had the privilege of meeting the local news meteorologist at the library.
For all the weather terminology I learned as a child two words were notably absent, polar vortex and heat dome. I would not learn these words until after I became an adult.
The term polar vortex dates to 1853 and describes rings of cold air that circulate around Earth’s north and south poles. These winds become stronger in winter and it is a weakening of the vortex that cause the circular shape to break down and loops of frigid arctic air to travel further south than normal dropping winter temperatures here in Indiana to far below zero. In December 2013 this caused wind chills in some parts of the northern United States to drop to −42 °F. Another cold snap in January 2019 pushed wind chills down to -51 °F which is cold enough to cause frostbite in ten minutes.
The antonym of a polar vortex is the heat dome. This term’s origin is less clear than polar vortex, but dates to at least 2011 and likely some years before. The usage of heat dome picked up in July 2011 and was used to describe the heat wave at the time that pushed the heat index in Toronto Canada up to 124 °F. A heat dome is an unusually stationary area of high-pressure air that prevents clouds from forming or rain which results in the sun shining unabated to the ground below. The high-pressure region also traps in the sun’s heat and the air moisture creating insufferably prolonged and high heat index conditions. Heat dome is often used as a buzz word to erroneously describe any heat wave, but a heat dome may not be the actual cause of a heat wave. Other notable "heat domes" occurred in 2016 with temperatures reaching 125 °F in California, July of 2021 where Canada recorded its highest ever temperature of 121.3 °F, and most recently in August 2023 where the heat index at Chicago O’Hare airport reached 120 °F.
The absence of polar vortexes and heat domes from my childhood memory is not my imagination. According to Google Trends, which tracks search activity on the Google search engine since 2004, the term polar vortex is virtually non-existent before the 2013 deep freeze of the northern United States. There was another notable spike when arctic air returned in 2019.
The term heat dome shows a similar pattern. The use of the word was non-existent before 2011, but spiked in 2011, 2016, 2021, and 2023 in response to the respective heat waves.
One variable that is not controlled for in the Google Trends data is that the internet today is certainly much more widespread than it was in 2004. The improvements from dial-up modems to fiber and satellite connections and the proliferation of people who have access to a smartphone or computer with internet likely explains at least some of the increase in search activity and why the data is absent from 2004 to 2011. More people get their news and weather from the internet today than in the early 2000’s too. However, I do believe that the use of words like polar vortex and heat dome to describe extreme weather events is becoming an increasing part of our contemporary vocabulary.
Since Twister came out in 1996 the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has risen from 360 parts per million (ppm) to over 420 ppm, an increase of 18%, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that the fuel burned to power cars, trucks, and planes accounts for most CO2 emissions (28%), but the next largest source is generating electricity with coal and natural gas (25%), most of which is used to run energy-hungry air conditioners to cool homes and businesses.
The demand for air conditioning and the electricity it consumes is growing every year because the average temperature of the planet is rising, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. 2024 has been the hottest year on record so far going back to 1940.
Currently, we are in an uncontrolled positive feedback loop of rising global temperatures and electricity demand to cool people down, which increases the emissions of CO2, which further increases global temperatures and the demand for air conditioning and energy.
Atmospheric CO2 levels have not been this high for 16 million years, according to research published by The Cenozoic CO2 Proxy Integration Project (CenCO2PIP) Consortium in 2023, which analyzed prehistoric air bubbles trapped in Greenland ice cores. Temperatures were much warmer back then too, at least 5 to 8 °C warmer on average than today (about 9 to 14.4 °F), which is well above the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement goal of keeping the planet from warming above 1.5 °C (2.7 °F). Note that the planet warmed to 1.52 °C (2.7 °F) in 2023 according to the United Nations. The Paris Climate Agreement goal has already been breached with no slowdown in sight.
The consequences of uncontrolled increases in CO2 and average planet temperature are only now coming into better understanding. Climate change was historically referred to as global warming, but warming is only part of the problem. Heat-related records are being broken every year, but other extreme weather events like arctic cold (i.e., polar vortexes), tornadoes, hurricanes, wildfires, and their associated destruction of property, loss of crops, floods, droughts, famine, disease, crime, and population displacement are also all direct consequences of the rising levels of CO2.
The economic destruction of climate change is one of the few motivators that promotes academics and government to study, model, and plan for the change to come. The loss of money, not life, is the only true persuader for change.
Indiana University prepared a report for the City of Elkhart in 2020 outlining possible risks to the city in the context of climate change. One such warning has gone blatantly unheeded. The report advises of the potential damage extreme rain can have and the risk of flooding along the Saint Joseph River. Some of the most developed areas of the city are all located within the vulnerable flood plains, including the new Elkhart Health and Aquatics Center that opened in 2020 and up-and-coming Elkhart River District, where millions of dollars are being invested into high-end luxury apartments and commercial buildings. All are at risk of damage from severe flooding, which occurred as recently as 2018.
Another report prepared by Purdue University in 2018 shows how Indiana’s climate will shift by 2080. Under the high CO2 emission scenario where CO2 emissions continue unabated, Indiana will have a climate in 2080 closer to that of Corpus Christi Texas today in the summer and Washington D.C. in the winter.
On a more positive note on a warmer Indiana, other than a marked decrease in snow and a shorter winter, is that the growing season for farming would increase an average of 35 days across the state. It is unclear, however, how the corn, soybeans, and their farmers would fare with an average of 2 ½ months of the year being 95+°F every day with highs up to 111 °F.
Another impact of climate change just recently coming to light is the migration of people away from regions that become inhospitable. People will move towards areas that are more comfortable once their living situation deteriorates to the point of threatening their survival. On The Move by Abraham Lustgarten (2024) describes how people in climate-vulnerable regions such as coastal towns being eroded and washed away by rising seas and hurricanes, along the west coast where homes are being charred by wildfires, and those who live west of the Mississippi River will run out of water due to the draining of the Colorado River. The heat and subsequent loss of farming and the resulting famines in South America is already driving millions of people northwards and across the border in a politically-charged migration never before seen. Crime has been shown to increase as the environment becomes increasingly unlivable and people fight to survive. The local news is already reporting on an increase in violence associated with the current heat wave.
Climate change is a global problem that encompasses unfathomably complex planetary forces that span hundreds of millions of years. The problems are not even fully understood which makes it all the more challenging to come up with solutions. It is impossible for me to summarize everything on the topic here.
I feel the developed world is far too comfortable right now to be motivated in investing any meaningful time or money into more renewable forms of energy that don't emit CO2. As long as people have access to air conditioned homes, workplaces, and cars; and cheap and readily available oil and natural gas, it is unlikely that the status quo will change any time soon. Once those factors start to shift out of balance though, such as if energy and food prices begin to rise, or climate migrants start showing up in town or on your doorstep with friendly or desperate intentions or otherwise--policymakers will then be forced to act.
The science shows that Earth and life have survived far more extreme climate conditions including higher CO2 levels and temperatures. Earth will continue on whether humans are here or not. I do not underestimate the adaptability of humans though. I am hopeful that we will make breakthroughs in research such as in fusion energy or that the eventual depletion of fossil fuels will force us to shift to renewable energy. Almost poetically, the reserves of proven fossil fuels are estimated to be depleted around the same time the climate is forecasted to start becoming bad. I am hopeful that a transition can be done peacefully, but if history is any guide, there will likely be war over the last remaining fossil fuels. The second half of this century is looking to be very tumultuous. I can understand why in many countries around the world birth rates are declining so precipitously. I wrote a separate Note on that topic. I am hopeful that once we do stop using fossil fuels that the planet will begin to heal, perhaps faster than what we estimate.
During the two-hour peak energy event the temperature in our apartment rose two degrees from 73 to 75 with the air conditioner off, about one degree per hour. This is an inconsequential price to pay to reduce the demand on the energy grid and ensure there's enough power for people who really need it to live like the elderly and the hospital. I even got paid to do it.
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