A relentless heat wave gripping the United States continues to set records and has claimed lives across multiple states, highlighting the deadly consequences of extreme temperatures. Six motorcyclists went into Death Valley National Park on July 6, and only five came out alive. At 128 degrees, one cyclist was killed by the extreme heat, and another was hospitalized, officials from the National Park Service said.
In typical medical emergencies, helicopters are dispatched to transport patients to medical centers as fast as possible. However, the searing heat of the heatwave rendered the helicopters useless for some time. Indeed, in Stanwood, California, the following day, a helicopter in an emergency medical flight was forced to halt the rescue service because the tarmac beside a patient was just too hot to land on. The pilot, 27 years into his work, had never seen temperatures that high.
Extreme heat can cause the computer and mechanical systems of a helicopter to become ignorant and malfunction. Also, hot air expands, reducing the air pressure of the atmosphere, so airlift through helicopter blades cannot be achieved. This two-way situation creates very dangerous flying conditions if conditions even permit flight.
A hotter planet also causes turbulence in commercial flying and can cause injuries or even deaths. As many pilots prefer flying early in the morning and avoiding the thermal-induced turbulence of days that get progressively hot, affecting the travel schedule.
Climate change is making these conditions worse, with a study just released in 2023 in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, showing that severe or greater clear-air turbulence had increased in frequency by 55% from 1979 through 2020. The authors warned that the present report might be an underestimate of future increases in CAT.
And it’s not just the West; huge swaths of the East Coast and the South find themselves under the grip of the heat wave. Weather monitors. The National Weather Services issued its highest alert for parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, and has placed parts of the East Coast, such as states like Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, under heat advisories.
Overnight and into the weekend, scores of areas in the West and Pacific Northwest either tied or broke pre-existing heat records. Death Valley registered 128 degrees Fahrenheit, where one visitor died of heat exposure and another was hospitalized. Emergency medical choppers couldn’t even respond because aircraft can’t usually fly safely over 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
Park Superintendent Mike Reynolds said visitors should choose their activities wisely and continue not to stay outside longer than indoors in air conditioning. Officials also reminded visitors that even by Saturday, the illnesses and injuries that result from heat are cumulative: they build up over days.
Triple-digit temperatures were common across Oregon, as Salem soared to 103 degrees Fahrenheit to break a record set back in 1960. The weather service was advising people to drink plenty of fluids, stay in air-conditioned rooms, and check on relatives and neighbors. Never leave young children or pets in cars unattended under any circumstances.
Rare heat advisories extended into mountainous elevations, including those around Lake Tahoe. The weather service in Reno, Nev., warned of “major heat risk impacts, even in the mountains.” More extreme highs are forecasted, and temperatures may reach 130 degrees Fahrenheit midweek at Furnace Creek, Calif., in Death Valley.
With every summer drawing out the preceding one as the hottest on record, the danger of living in a warming world could not be as palpable now. Temperature records and extreme weather events are quickly joining the list of risible norms occasioned by man-made climate change in life.