Is the record-breaking heatwave baking the West Coast caused by climate crisis?
Los Angeles, California - A record early heat wave striking the Western US on Friday is a one-in-500-years type event and all but certainly the result of human-caused climate change, experts say.
The heat has been toppling records this week and was set to continue into the weekend across western cities, expanding eastward.
One spot in the desert area at Martinez Lake, Arizona registered almost 110 degrees Fahrenheit – a national record for March. Already, 65 cities have seen new March highs, ranging from Arizona and California to Idaho, weather.com reported.
Death Valley on Thursday scorched in 105 degrees while the often cool and foggy San Francisco tied its historic March record at 86 degrees, and skiers in Colorado were hitting the slopes shirtless.
The National Weather Service issued extreme heat warnings Friday for much of the Southwest, ranging from Los Angeles and coastal southern California to Las Vegas.
Warnings were issued against leaving children or pets in cars.
The phenomenal heat when winter is only just ending alarmed climate watchers, who saw evidence of dire change.
"This heatwave would be virtually impossible for the time of year in a world without human-induced climate change," World Weather Attribution scientists said in a report.
They called the event so rare that despite overall rising temperatures something this serious is only "expected to occur about once every 500 years."
"These findings leave no room for doubt. Climate change is pushing weather into extremes that would have been unthinkable in a pre-industrial world," said one of the study's authors, Friederike Otto, a climate science professor at Imperial College London.
"In the US West, the seasons that people and nature were used to for centuries are disappearing, putting many, including outdoor workers and those without air conditioning in danger," she said. "The threat isn't distant – it is here, it is worsening, and our policy must catch up with reality."
Cover photo: REUTERS