The Weather in America Is About to Get Terrifying
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The heat is on. This week parts of the U.S. are seeing record-breaking temperatures in the triple digits. Arizona and California already passed daily temperature records this weekend, according to the Los Angeles Times.
With seemingly perfect timing, climate change scientist Michael E. Mann, Ph.D., from Penn State University was speaking to the Democratic Platform Drafting Committee in Phoenix last week right before the record-breaking temperatures hit Arizona on Sunday.
"I was actually in Phoenix giving testimony to the democratic platform drafting committee about climate change only 24 hours before the record heat was expected to set in," he told ATTN:. "In my testimony I indeed alluded to this event as yet another example of the impacts of climate change that we are now seeing play out in real time before us."
By Sunday, Phoenix hit 118 degrees Fahrenheit and Tucson hit 115 degrees Fahrenheit, according to local Arizona station ABC 15. Four hikers also died in Arizona for heat related reasons over the weekend.
Mann said that the chance of record-breaking heat waves keep increasing because of man-made climate change.
"This is just the sort of extreme heat that is on the increase due to human-caused climate change," he said. "The likelihood of record heat has already doubled in the U.S. due to human-caused warming, and that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg."
Parts of Southern California also saw record-breaking heat this weekend. Palm Springs reached 122 degrees Fahrenheit, according to local Los Angeles station KTLA.
People on Twitter are struggling through the heat wave.
Mann said that human beings have to stop polluting to change the current course.
"If we continue with business-as-usual burning of fossil fuels, by mid century what we think of as extreme summer heat today will become a typical summer day," he said.
