PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Philadelphia area is not alone in losing holiday weekend events to sweltering heat. One-third of the country is under a heat dome that is tied to climate change, according to Penn professor Michael Mann, the nation’s leading climate scientist.
“This really is a very dangerous extreme weather phenomenon,” Mann said in an interview with KYW newsradio. “It’s often called the deadly killer because it impacts our cardiovascular system, so there are more heart attacks that occur, more strokes.”
Mann said such phenomena have tripled in the last 50 years.
“We’re seeing more and more of it undoubtedly because of human-caused warming, because of the continued burning of fossil fuels, the elevation of carbon pollution in the atmosphere and the warming of the planet,” Mann said.
Mann said the threat goes beyond the basic equation that a warmer planet equals more heat events. He said it’s the way the planet is warming.
“The Arctic is warming up fastest, changing the behavior in the summer of the jet stream,” he said.
His center at Penn has found that instability in the jet stream causes more “resonance” events — extreme heat or flooding rain that stays in place for days.
He said the fact that it’s impacting high-profile events, such as the FIFA World Cup and its many fans, may prompt a call for solutions.
“We can stop this from getting worse from moving away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy. The obstacles aren’t physical. They’re not technological,” Mann said.
Expert says it’s tied to climate change
Expert says it’s tied to climate change
