ReportWire

Tag: Heat waves

  • US Customs and Border Protection sends resources to remote Arizona area after increase in migrant crossings | CNN

    US Customs and Border Protection sends resources to remote Arizona area after increase in migrant crossings | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    US border officials are increasing personnel and transportation resources at Ajo, Arizona, one of the most isolated and dangerous areas on the Southwest border, to deal with a recent increase in migrants and an ongoing heat wave.

    “Border Patrol has prioritized the quick transporting of noncitizens encountered in this desert environment, which is particularly dangerous during current weather conditions, to Border Patrol facilities where individuals can receive medical care, food and water,” a spokesperson for US Customs and Border Protection said in a statement.

    An excessive heat warning is in effect for Ajo until Sunday evening. “Dangerously hot conditions” and high temperatures of 106 to 112 degrees are expected, according to the National Weather Service.

    The spike in migration at Ajo is driven by human smuggling organizations shifting the flow of migrants to some of the most dangerous terrain, including the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument near Ajo, according to the Border Patrol.

    Currently, the average time in custody at the Ajo station is 15 hours, with some migrants spending a portion of those hours outside waiting to be transported, according to the Border Patrol. The agency said the fenced-in outdoor space is covered by a large canopy and migrants have access to large fans, meals, water, and bathroom facilities. The outdoor area is only used for adult men, while women, children, and members of vulnerable populations are held inside the station.

    “USBP has utilized outdoor shaded areas only when necessary and for very short times while they await onward transportation to larger facilities,” said the agency’s spokesperson. “The Ajo Border Patrol Station is not equipped to hold large number of migrants due to historic trends in this area.”

    After arriving at Ajo Station, migrants are screened and then transported to other locations for immigration processing, with the closest large Border Patrol facility or shelter 2.5 hours away, according to the Border Patrol.

    The agency would not disclose the Ajo facility’s capacity to CNN, citing security concerns.

    The Tucson Border Patrol sector encountered more than 24,000 migrants in June, making it the second-busiest sector on the southern border during the month, according to Border Patrol data.

    Border Patrol officials report no deaths have occurred at Ajo station or the surrounding areas since the beginning of the heat wave and since the increase in migrant encounters.

    Across the state, Arizonans have experienced extreme heat over the past weeks, with Phoenix recording 31 consecutive days with a high temperature of 110 degrees or above. The streak of high temperatures made July the hottest month on record for the city.

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  • The extreme heat in Phoenix is withering some of its famed saguaro cacti, with no end in sight

    The extreme heat in Phoenix is withering some of its famed saguaro cacti, with no end in sight

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    PHOENIX — After recording the warmest monthly average temperature for any U.S. city ever in July, Phoenix climbed back up to dangerously high temperatures Wednesday. That could mean trouble not just for people but for some plants, too.

    Residents across the sprawling metro are finding the extended extreme heat has led to fried flora, and have shared photos and video of their damaged cacti with the Desert Botanical Garden. Nurseries and landscapers are inundated with requests for help with saguaros or fruit trees that are losing leaves.

    Phones have been “ringing nonstop” about everything from a cactus to a citrus tree or ficus, said Sophia Booth, a landscape designer at Moon Valley Nursery, which has nearly a dozen locations across the Phoenix suburbs.

    “A lot of people are calling and saying their cactus is yellowing really hard, fell over or like broken arms, that sort of thing,” Booth said. “Twenty-year-old trees are losing all their leaves, or they’re turning a crisp brown.”

    She advises people to give water and specialty fertilizer to a distressed tree or plant every other day and not to trim them.

    At the Desert Botanical Garden, three of the treasured institution’s more than 1,000 saguaro cacti have toppled over or lost an arm in the last week, a rate that officials there say is highly unusual.

    These saguaros, a towering trademark of the Sonoran Desert landscape, were already stressed from record-breaking heat three years ago, and this summer’s historic heat — the average temperature in Phoenix last month was 102.7 degrees Fahrenheit (39.3 degrees Celsius) — turned out to be the cactus needle that broke the camel’s back.

    “Since 2020, we have had elevated mortality in our population of saguaros compared to mortality rates pre-2020,” said Kimberlie McCue, the garden’s chief science officer. “So part of our thinking is that there are still saguaros today that were compromised from what they went through in 2020. And that this could be sending them over the edge.”

    Saguaros can live up to 200 years and grow as tall as 40 feet (12 meters). Some in the Desert Botanical Garden date beyond its opening 85 years ago, and the largest there measure almost 30 feet (9 meters), according to McCue.

    People commonly assume that cacti are made to endure scorching heat, but even they can have their limits, McCue said. It wasn’t just this summer’s 31-day streak of highs at or above 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius), but also the multiple nights when the low never dipped below 90 degrees (32.2 Celsius). Nighttime is when cacti open their pores to get rid of retained water and take in carbon dioxide, she explained.

    “With water loss, if they become dehydrated, that can compromise the structural integrity that they have in their tissues,” McCue said.

    A cactus’ size can also influence its susceptibility, said Kevin Hultine, the garden’s director of research, and bigger plants with more mass are more prone to the effects of heat and drought.

    “Larger (and older) plants have more arms and thus, they tend to be the first to start to lose structural integrity,” Hultine said via email. “The first sign of heat-related stress in a population are arms falling from large plants. Eventually, the entire plant might fall over from the stress.”

    There is hope that the arrival of thunderstorms during the monsoon season, which traditionally starts June 15, could bring more delayed moisture that will help struggling flora. The U.S. monsoon is characterized by a shift in wind patterns that pull moisture in from the tropical coast of Mexico. It sets up differently in other parts of the world. In Arizona, about half the rain that falls during the year comes during the monsoon.

    It can be a mixed bag — cooling sweltering cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix but bringing the risk of flooding to mountain towns and low-lying deserts alike. It carries a promise of rain but doesn’t always deliver. And even when it does, the moisture isn’t shared equally across the Four Corners region and beyond. The last two seasons were impressive, and the two before that largely duds.

    In the southern Arizona city of Tucson, which has already seen some monsoon activity, the outdoor living Sonoran Desert Museum isn’t running into the same problems with its succulents, McCue said.

    “We have the double whammy of this heat dome that seems to have decided to sit over Phoenix. And we’re also this massively spread out space with highways and parking lots,” McCue said. However, “the story isn’t complete yet.”

    Booth, of Moon Valley Nurseries, agreed that rain could still keep some plants and trees from reaching the point of no return. In the meantime, staffers at the nursery are preparing for temperatures to soar again this week.

    “We do take a lot of precautions, especially to our planters and people that don’t just work in the office,” Booth said. “Our yard crew, they’re in long sleeves. They have their straw hats on. We make sure we have bottled water in the fridge at all times. We haven’t had any heat exhaustion yet out of this (location).”

    As of Wednesday, there was no rain in the forecast anytime soon according to the National Weather Service. After two days of a slight drop, high temperatures reached 111 (43.9 Celsius) and are expected to be 110 degrees (43.3 Celsius) or more for the next 10 days.

    There has been some monsoonal activity in southern and northern Arizona, but Phoenix is “stuck in the middle,” meteorologist Matt Salerno said.

    “There’s still hope maybe the middle of this month the monsoon will become more active again,” Salerno said.

    There will likely be some record-breaking before then, however. The Weather Service plans to issue an extreme heat warning Friday through Monday, when the highs will be between 111 (43.9 Celsius) and 117 (47.2 Celsius).

    In the meantime, the Desert Botanical Garden has been working to propagate cacti that seem better able to endure searing conditions after staffers noticed the 2020 heat was more difficult for some plants than others. Some just seemed to have a genetic makeup that allowed them to thrive.

    “We want to try and capture that and grow more saguaros from seed here to add into our population at the garden with the idea that over time, that is going to bring more resiliency into into our population here,” McCue said.

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  • Record heat waves illuminate plight of poorest Americans who suffer without air conditioning

    Record heat waves illuminate plight of poorest Americans who suffer without air conditioning

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    DENVER — As Denver neared triple-digit temperatures, Ben Gallegos sat shirtless on his porch swatting flies off his legs and spritzing himself with a misting fan to try to get through the heat. Gallegos, like many in the nation’s poorest neighborhoods, doesn’t have air conditioning.

    The 68-year-old covers his windows with mattress foam to insulate against the heat and sleeps in the concrete basement. He knows high temperatures can cause heat stroke and death, and his lung condition makes him more susceptible. But the retired brick layer, who survives on about $1,000 a month largely from Social Security, says air conditioning is out of reach.

    “Take me about 12 years to save up for something like that,” he said. “If it’s hard to breathe, I’ll get down to emergency.”

    As climate change fans hotter and longer heat waves, breaking record temperatures across the U.S. and leaving dozens dead, the poorest Americans suffer the hottest days with the fewest defenses. Air conditioning, once a luxury, is now a matter of survival.

    As Phoenix weathered its 27th consecutive day above 110 degrees (43 Celsius) Wednesday, the nine who died indoors didn’t have functioning air conditioning, or it was turned off. Last year, all 86 heat-related deaths indoors were in uncooled environments.

    “To explain it fairly simply: Heat kills,” said Kristie Ebi, a University of Washington professor who researches heat and health. “Once the heat wave starts, mortality starts in about 24 hours.”

    It’s the poorest and people of color, from Kansas City to Detroit to New York City and beyond, who are far more likely to face grueling heat without air conditioning, according to a Boston University analysis of 115 U.S. metros.

    “The temperature differences … between lower-income neighborhoods, neighborhoods of color and their wealthier, whiter counterparts have pretty severe consequences,” said Cate Mingoya-LaFortune of Groundwork USA, an environmental justice organization. “There are these really big consequences like death. … But there’s also ambient misery.”

    Some have window units that can offer respite, but “in the dead of heat, it don’t do nothing,” said Melody Clark, who stopped Friday to get food at a nonprofit in Kansas City, Kansas, as temperatures soared to 101, and high humidity made it feel like 109. When the central air conditioning at her rental house went on the fritz, her landlord installed a window unit. But it doesn’t do much during the day.

    So the 45-year-old wets her hair, cooks outside on a propane grill and keeps the lights off indoors. She’s taken the bus to the library to cool off. At night she flips the box unit on, hauling her bed into the room where it’s located to sleep.

    As far as her two teenagers, she said: “They aren’t little bitty. We aren’t dying in the heat. … They don’t complain.”

    While billions in federal funding have been allocated to subsidize utility costs and the installation of cooling systems, experts say they often only support a fraction of the most vulnerable families and some still require prohibitive upfront costs. Installing a centralized heat pump system for heating and cooling can easily reach $25,000.

    President Joe Biden announced steps on Thursday to defend against extreme heat, highlighting the expansion of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which funnels money through states to help poorer households pay utility bills.

    While the program is critical, said Michelle Graff, who studies the subsidy at Cleveland State University, only about 16% of the nation’s eligible population is actually reached. Nearly half of states don’t offer the federal dollars for summer cooling.

    “So people are engaging in coping mechanisms, like they’re turning on their air conditioners later and leaving their homes hotter,” Graff said.

    While frigid temperatures and high heating bills birthed the term “heat or eat,” she said, “we can now transition to AC or eat, where people are going to have to make difficult decisions.”

    As temperatures rise, so does the cost of cooling. And temperatures are already hotter in America’s low-income neighborhoods like Gallegos’ Denver suburb of Globeville, where people live along stretches of asphalt and concrete that hold heat like a cast-iron skillet. Surface temperatures there can be roughly 8 degrees hotter than in Denver’s wealthier neighborhoods, where a sea of vegetation cools the area, according to the environmental advocacy group American Forests.

    This disparity plays out nationwide. Researchers at the University of San Diego analyzed 1,056 counties and in over 70%, the poorest areas and those with higher Black, Hispanic and Asian populations were significantly hotter.

    About one in 10 U.S. households have no air conditioning, a disparity compounded for marginalized groups, according to a study by the Brookings Institution. Less than 4% of Detroit’s white households don’t have air conditioning; it’s 15% for Black households.

    At noon on Friday, Katrice Sullivan sat on the porch of her rented house on Detroit’s westside. It was hot and muggy, but even steamier inside the house. Even if she had air conditioning, Sullivan said she’d choose her moments to run it to keep her electricity bill down.

    The 37-year-old factory worker pours water on her head, freezes towels to put around her neck, and sits in her car with the air conditioner on. “Some people here spend every dollar for food, so air conditioning is something they can’t afford,” she said.

    Shannon Lewis, 38, lived in her Detroit home for nearly 20 years without air conditioning. Lewis’s bedroom was the only place with a window unit, so she’d squeeze her teenager, 8-year-old and 3-year-old-twins into her queen-size bed to sleep, eat meals and watch television.

    “So it was like cool in one room and a heat stroke in another,” Lewis said. For the first time, Lewis now has air conditioning through a local non-profit, she said. “We don’t have to sleep or eat in the same room, we are able to come out, sit at the dining room table, eat like a family.”

    After at least 54 died during a 2021 heat wave, mostly elderly people without air conditioning, in the Portland area, Oregon passed a law prohibiting landlords from placing blanket bans on air conditioning units. By and large, however, states don’t have laws requiring landlords to provide cooling.

    In the federal Inflation Reduction Act, billions were set aside for tax credits and rebates to help families install energy-efficient cooling systems, but some of those are yet to be available. For people like Gallegos, who doesn’t pay taxes, the available credits are worthless.

    The law also offers rebates, the kind of state and federal point-of-sale discounts that Amanda Morian has looked into for her 640-square-foot home.

    Morian, who has a 13-week-old baby susceptible to hot weather, is desperate to keep her house in Denver’s Globeville suburb cool. She bought thermal curtains, ceiling fans and runs a window unit. At night she tries to do skin-to-skin touch to regulate the baby’s body temperature. When the back door opens in the afternoon, she said, the indoor temperature jumps a degree.

    “All of those are just to take the edge off, it’s not enough to actually make it cool. It’s enough to keep us from dying,” she said.

    She got estimates from four different companies for installing a cooling system, but every project was between $20,000 and $25,000, she said. Even with subsidies she can’t afford it.

    “I’m finding that you have to afford the project in the first place and then it’s like having a bonus coupon to take $5,000 off of the sticker price,” she said.

    Lucy Molina, a single mom in Commerce City, one of Denver’s poorest areas, said her home has reached 107 degrees without air conditioning. Nearby, Molina’s two teenage children slurped popsicles to cool off, lingering in front of the open freezer.

    For Molina, who bustled around her kitchen on a recent day when temperatures reached 99 degrees outdoors, it’s hard to see any path to a cooling respite.

    “We’re just too poor,” she said.

    ____

    Associated Press writers Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Kansas, and Corey Williams in Detroit contributed to this report.

    ——

    Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • Record heat waves illuminate plight of poorest Americans who suffer without air conditioning

    Record heat waves illuminate plight of poorest Americans who suffer without air conditioning

    [ad_1]

    DENVER — As Denver neared triple-digit temperatures, Ben Gallegos sat shirtless on his porch swatting flies off his legs and spritzing himself with a misting fan to try to get through the heat. Gallegos, like many in the nation’s poorest neighborhoods, doesn’t have air conditioning.

    The 68-year-old covers his windows with mattress foam to insulate against the heat and sleeps in the concrete basement. He knows high temperatures can cause heat stroke and death, and his lung condition makes him more susceptible. But the retired brick layer, who survives on about $1,000 a month largely from Social Security, says air conditioning is out of reach.

    “Take me about 12 years to save up for something like that,” he said. “If it’s hard to breathe, I’ll get down to emergency.”

    As climate change fans hotter and longer heat waves, breaking record temperatures across the U.S. and leaving dozens dead, the poorest Americans suffer the hottest days with the fewest defenses. Air conditioning, once a luxury, is now a matter of survival.

    As Phoenix weathered its 27th consecutive day above 110 degrees (43 Celsius) Wednesday, the nine who died indoors didn’t have functioning air conditioning, or it was turned off. Last year, all 86 heat-related deaths indoors were in uncooled environments.

    “To explain it fairly simply: Heat kills,” said Kristie Ebi, a University of Washington professor who researches heat and health. “Once the heat wave starts, mortality starts in about 24 hours.”

    It’s the poorest and people of color, from Kansas City to Detroit to New York City and beyond, who are far more likely to face grueling heat without air conditioning, according to a Boston University analysis of 115 U.S. metros.

    “The temperature differences … between lower-income neighborhoods, neighborhoods of color and their wealthier, whiter counterparts have pretty severe consequences,” said Cate Mingoya-LaFortune of Groundwork USA, an environmental justice organization. “There are these really big consequences like death. … But there’s also ambient misery.”

    Some have window units that can offer respite, but “in the dead of heat, it don’t do nothing,” said Melody Clark, who stopped Friday to get food at a nonprofit in Kansas City, Kansas, as temperatures soared to 101, and high humidity made it feel like 109. When the central air conditioning at her rental house went on the fritz, her landlord installed a window unit. But it doesn’t do much during the day.

    So the 45-year-old wets her hair, cooks outside on a propane grill and keeps the lights off indoors. She’s taken the bus to the library to cool off. At night she flips the box unit on, hauling her bed into the room where it’s located to sleep.

    As far as her two teenagers, she said: “They aren’t little bitty. We aren’t dying in the heat. … They don’t complain.”

    While billions in federal funding have been allocated to subsidize utility costs and the installation of cooling systems, experts say they often only support a fraction of the most vulnerable families and some still require prohibitive upfront costs. Installing a centralized heat pump system for heating and cooling can easily reach $25,000.

    President Joe Biden announced steps on Thursday to defend against extreme heat, highlighting the expansion of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which funnels money through states to help poorer households pay utility bills.

    While the program is critical, said Michelle Graff, who studies the subsidy at Cleveland State University, only about 16% of the nation’s eligible population is actually reached. Nearly half of states don’t offer the federal dollars for summer cooling.

    “So people are engaging in coping mechanisms, like they’re turning on their air conditioners later and leaving their homes hotter,” Graff said.

    While frigid temperatures and high heating bills birthed the term “heat or eat,” she said, “we can now transition to AC or eat, where people are going to have to make difficult decisions.”

    As temperatures rise, so does the cost of cooling. And temperatures are already hotter in America’s low-income neighborhoods like Gallegos’ Denver suburb of Globeville, where people live along stretches of asphalt and concrete that hold heat like a cast-iron skillet. Surface temperatures there can be roughly 8 degrees hotter than in Denver’s wealthier neighborhoods, where a sea of vegetation cools the area, according to the environmental advocacy group American Forests.

    This disparity plays out nationwide. Researchers at the University of San Diego analyzed 1,056 counties and in over 70%, the poorest areas and those with higher Black, Hispanic and Asian populations were significantly hotter.

    About one in 10 U.S. households have no air conditioning, a disparity compounded for marginalized groups, according to a study by the Brookings Institution. Less than 4% of Detroit’s white households don’t have air conditioning; it’s 15% for Black households.

    At noon on Friday, Katrice Sullivan sat on the porch of her rented house on Detroit’s westside. It was hot and muggy, but even steamier inside the house. Even if she had air conditioning, Sullivan said she’d choose her moments to run it to keep her electricity bill down.

    The 37-year-old factory worker pours water on her head, freezes towels to put around her neck, and sits in her car with the air conditioner on. “Some people here spend every dollar for food, so air conditioning is something they can’t afford,” she said.

    Shannon Lewis, 38, lived in her Detroit home for nearly 20 years without air conditioning. Lewis’s bedroom was the only place with a window unit, so she’d squeeze her teenager, 8-year-old and 3-year-old-twins into her queen-size bed to sleep, eat meals and watch television.

    “So it was like cool in one room and a heat stroke in another,” Lewis said. For the first time, Lewis now has air conditioning through a local non-profit, she said. “We don’t have to sleep or eat in the same room, we are able to come out, sit at the dining room table, eat like a family.”

    After at least 54 died during a 2021 heat wave, mostly elderly people without air conditioning, in the Portland area, Oregon passed a law prohibiting landlords from placing blanket bans on air conditioning units. By and large, however, states don’t have laws requiring landlords to provide cooling.

    In the federal Inflation Reduction Act, billions were set aside for tax credits and rebates to help families install energy-efficient cooling systems, but some of those are yet to be available. For people like Gallegos, who doesn’t pay taxes, the available credits are worthless.

    The law also offers rebates, the kind of state and federal point-of-sale discounts that Amanda Morian has looked into for her 640-square-foot home.

    Morian, who has a 13-week-old baby susceptible to hot weather, is desperate to keep her house in Denver’s Globeville suburb cool. She bought thermal curtains, ceiling fans and runs a window unit. At night she tries to do skin-to-skin touch to regulate the baby’s body temperature. When the back door opens in the afternoon, she said, the indoor temperature jumps a degree.

    “All of those are just to take the edge off, it’s not enough to actually make it cool. It’s enough to keep us from dying,” she said.

    She got estimates from four different companies for installing a cooling system, but every project was between $20,000 and $25,000, she said. Even with subsidies she can’t afford it.

    “I’m finding that you have to afford the project in the first place and then it’s like having a bonus coupon to take $5,000 off of the sticker price,” she said.

    Lucy Molina, a single mom in Commerce City, one of Denver’s poorest areas, said her home has reached 107 degrees without air conditioning. Nearby, Molina’s two teenage children slurped popsicles to cool off, lingering in front of the open freezer.

    For Molina, who bustled around her kitchen on a recent day when temperatures reached 99 degrees outdoors, it’s hard to see any path to a cooling respite.

    “We’re just too poor,” she said.

    ____

    Associated Press writers Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Kansas, and Corey Williams in Detroit contributed to this report.

    ——

    Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • It’s the summer of changed climate. Get used to it | CNN Politics

    It’s the summer of changed climate. Get used to it | CNN Politics

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    A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a hot take on the summer of 2023: The climate you grew up in is gone, replaced by something new and changing, but also inalterably different – where the Atlantic Ocean can reach hot-tub temperature, heat is a recurring public health concern and people will have to adapt their way of living.

    In this year of epic heat, it’s time to start thinking about how the climate changed rather than the fact of its changing.

    From a historical standpoint, we are in uncharted territory. This is not just the hottest month in human history. It may be the hottest month in 120,000 years, according to scientists in Europe.

    Nearly half the US is under a heat advisory this week, and the country’s largest power grid was on alert.

    The warnings that more fires, floods and storms would occur as the atmosphere heated up are here.

    A large portion of the country has seen smoke come and go from those Canadian wildfires. Tourists in Greece were forced to flee in the country’s largest-ever evacuation.

    Towns unused to flooding were under water this year in Vermont. Torrential rain flooded Boston’s Fenway park.

    The West Coast of the US, for instance, has gotten a respite so far from wildfires thanks to epic rainfall earlier in the year.

    But we can expect more heat more often. Asked by CNN’s Zain Asher about a heat index in Iran that approached 150 degrees Fahrenheit, Marina Romanello, executive director of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, said to prepare for more.

    “What we know is the heat will become much more intense, much more frequent, and that if we don’t act urgently to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then the outlook will be very serious with, as you said, temperatures that are beyond the limits of physiological survival.”

    Are we acting urgently? Asher pointed out California is phasing out gas-powered car sales. Romanello said the basic move would be to commit to phase out fossil fuels. But countries are not yet on that path or anywhere close to it.

    Take a look at Arizona, where Phoenix has endured nearly a full straight month of 110-plus-degree days.

    Cacti can’t stand the heat and are dying. Hospitals have been taxed. Doctors are treating people burned just by falling on the ground, according to one CNN report.

    The Phoenix area medical examiner has brought in extra refrigerated containers for bodies, like it did during spikes of Covid-19, to deal with potential overflow. Maricopa County has 25 heat-related deaths so far, but another 249 are under investigation.

    The urban density that creates economic opportunity also makes cities hotter than their surrounding areas. There can be variation up to 8 degrees between portions of a city with trees and green space and those that are mostly pavement.

    “These giant swings in temperature over short distances in cities, known as the urban heat island effect, make heat waves even worse,” writes CNN’s Rachel Ramirez of a new report by the nonprofit research group Climate Central. “Areas blanketed with asphalt, buildings, industry and freeways tend to absorb the sun’s energy then radiate more heat, while areas with abundant green space – parks, rivers, and tree-lined streets – radiate less heat and provide shade.”

    Ramirez notes that cities are looking for new ways to adapt, like painting roads white in Los Angeles, painting roofs in New York and more.

    Coral reefs off the Florida Keys, unable to stand the 100-plus-degree temperatures charted in some areas, are suffering a mass bleaching event, according to CNN’s Eric Zerkel, who writes experts were stunned at the two-week escalation that could kill some reefs off.

    That’s a very real and grim consequence. More theoretical is the possibility that the series of currents that circulates water around the oceans simply collapses.

    A study published in the journal Nature this week suggested the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current, which includes the Gulf Stream, could collapse as early as 2025. Melting ice could dilute ocean water and alter the currents, which would affect everyone on the planet.

    The reason gas prices have spiked in recent days? On top of OPEC holding back supply, excessive heat is affecting productivity at oil refineries.

    In the US, while President Joe Biden has made pledges to make the US carbon neutral in the coming decades, he is not completely opposed to new oil projects. It was seen as a political win for him and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, that the Supreme Court cleared the way Thursday for a new pipeline running through West Virginia.

    That news came the same day the White House announced new relief measures for people suffering from the record heat, including the creation of a new “heat hazard alert” system to clarify precautions for workers.

    “I don’t think anybody can deny the impact of climate change anymore,” Biden said, announcing the measures.

    A majority of Americans – 52% – said in Gallup survey in March, before this heat wave, that protecting the environment should be prioritized even if it hurts the economy. That’s compared with 43% who said the government should prioritize economic growth even if it hurts the environment.

    However.

    The numbers may fluctuate depending on how people feel about the health of the economy. But the share who prioritize economic growth over the environment has on the whole risen in Gallup’s polling over the long term. Between 1985 and 2002, that number never topped 40%. The partisan divide over climate change is also the largest it has ever been.

    The geophysicist Bill McGuire, a professor at University College London and author of “Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant’s Guide,” writes for CNN Opinion this week that people’s vacations as we know them are over.

    He points to tourists who had to flee the island of Rhodes in Greece to get away from wildfires.

    “It would be a big mistake to regard these as freak events and to continue holidaying as usual in the years ahead,” McGuire writes. “On the contrary, the extreme weather conditions across southern Europe this summer are a wake-up call – a reminder that not even our vacations are insulated from the growing consequences of global heating.”

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  • The extreme heat wave that blasted the Southwest is abating with late arriving monsoon rains

    The extreme heat wave that blasted the Southwest is abating with late arriving monsoon rains

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    PHOENIX — A historic heat wave that turned the U.S. Southwest into a blast furnace throughout July is beginning to abate with the late arrival of monsoon rains.

    Forecasters expect that by Monday at the latest, people in metro Phoenix will begin seeing high temperatures under 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius) for the first time in a month. As of Friday, the high temperature in the desert city had been at or above that mark for 29 consecutive days.

    Already this week, the overnight low at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport fell under 90 (32.2 C) for the first time in 16 days, finally allowing people some respite from the stifling heat once the sun goes down.

    Temperatures are also expected to ease in Las Vegas, Albuquerque and Death Valley, California.

    The downward trend started Wednesday night, when Phoenix saw its first major monsoon storm since the traditional start of the season on June 15. While more than half of the greater Phoenix area saw no rainfall from that storm, some eastern suburbs were pummeled by high winds, swirling dust and localized downfalls of up to an inch (2.5 centimeters) of precipitation.

    Storms gradually increasing in strength are expected over the weekend.

    Scientists calculate that July will prove to be the hottest globally on record and perhaps the warmest human civilization has seen. The extreme heat is now hitting the eastern part of the U.S, as soaring temperatures moved from the Midwest into the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, where some places are seeing their warmest days so far this year.

    The new heat records being set this summer are just some of the extreme weather being seen around the U.S. this month, such as flash floods in Pennsylvania and parts of the Northeast.

    And while relief may be on the way for the Southwest, for now it’s still dangerously hot. Phoenix’s high temperature reached 116 (46.7 C) Friday afternoon, which is far above the average temperature of 106 (41.1 C).

    “Anyone can be at risk outside in this record heat,” the fire department in Goodyear, a Phoenix suburb, warned residents on social media while offering ideas to stay safe.

    For many people such as older adults, those with health issues and those without access to air conditioning, the heat can be dangerous or even deadly.

    Maricopa County, the most populous in Arizona and home to Phoenix, reported this week that its public health department had confirmed 25 heat-associated deaths this year as of July 21, with 249 more under investigation.

    Results from toxicological tests that can takes weeks or months after an autopsy is conducted could eventually result in many deaths listed as under investigation as heat associated being changed to confirmed.

    Maricopa County confirmed 425 heat-associated deaths last year, and more than half of them occurred in July.

    Elsewhere in Arizona next week, the agricultural desert community of Yuma is expecting highs ranging from 104 to 112 (40 C to 44.4 C) and Tucson is looking at highs ranging from 99 to 111 (37.2 C to 43.9 C).

    The highs in Las Vegas are forecast to slip as low as 94 (34.4 C) next Tuesday after a long spell of highs above 110 (43.3 C). Death Valley, which hit 128 (53.3 C) in mid-July, will cool as well, though only to a still blistering hot 116 (46.7 C).

    In New Mexico, the highs in Albuquerque next week are expected to be in the mid to high 90s (around 35 C), with party cloudy skies.

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  • More than half of U.S. under heat alerts as deadly dome expands

    More than half of U.S. under heat alerts as deadly dome expands

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    More than half of U.S. under heat alerts as deadly dome expands – CBS News


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    The United Nations said temperature records show July is on track to be the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, and likely the warmest human civilization has ever seen. Over 180 million Americans — more than half of the U.S. population — were under heat alerts Thursday, from the Southwest to the Northeast. CBS News correspondent Roxana Saberi has the latest from New York.

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  • Biden looks to provide relief from extreme heat as record temperatures persist

    Biden looks to provide relief from extreme heat as record temperatures persist

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    WASHINGTON — With millions of Americans facing broiling heat across the Southwest, President Joe Biden on Thursday plans to announce new steps to improve weather forecasts and make drinking water more accessible, according to the White House.

    He’ll be joined by the leaders of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

    Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, described the heat wave as “a difficult time” and said Biden was treating climate change with “the urgency it requires.”

    Climate activists and some Democrats have pushed Biden to declare a climate “emergency,” but the White House has resisted.

    The mayors of Phoenix and San Antonio, two cities that have suffered from the heat waves, are expected to participate in the White House event virtually.

    Phoenix has seen at least 26 days in a row of temperatures exceeding 110 degrees. Maricopa County, where the city is located, reported recently that there were 18 heat-associated deaths between April 11 and July 15. Another 69 deaths remain under investigation. There were 425 heat-associated deaths in the county last year.

    San Antonio saw 15 straight days of 100-plus degrees. At least 13 deaths in Texas have been blamed on the extreme heat.

    Thursday’s announcement follows other steps that the administration has taken to adapt to increasing threats from extreme heat. Among those it is highlighting:

    The Department of Labor is developing a standard for how workplaces deal with heat. The proposed rule by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would require employers to provide adequate water and rest breaks to outdoor workers, as well as medical services and training to address signs and symptoms of heat-related illness. OSHA is holding meetings this summer to hear comments on how the heat standard would affect small businesses.

    In order to keep low-income populations cool, the Department of Health and Human Services expanded its Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to provide more access to air conditioning and cooling centers such as libraries, senior centers or other public buildings. The Environmental Protection Agency also has provided assistance to help communities develop cooling centers within schools.

    The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been helping cities and towns map “heat islands” with dense buildings and fewer trees, and the Department of Agriculture issued guidance for creating more tree canopy coverage, which helps with cooling environments.

    In addition, the administration launched a website called heat.gov with interactive maps, weather forecasts and tips for keeping cool amid record-breaking heat.

    More than 100 members of Congress, led by Texas Democratic Reps. Greg Casar and Sylvia Garcia and Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., have called on the administration to implement the new heat standard for outdoor workers as quickly as possible.

    “We know extreme weather events such as heat waves are becoming more frequent and more dangerous due to climate change. Urgent action is needed to prevent more deaths,″ the lawmakers wrote in a letter Monday.

    The United Farm Workers and other groups also called on OSHA to immediately issue a nationwide rule protecting outdoor workers after farm worker deaths this month in Florida and Arizona.

    “Farm workers need and deserve the access to shade, water and paid breaks,” said UFW President Teresa Romero. “How many more workers will we let dangerous heat and callous employers kill before this nation acts?”

    Douglas Parker, assistant Labor secretary for occupational safety and health, called heat illness prevention a top priority. As OSHA works toward a final rule, the agency is enhancing enforcement efforts “to make sure employers and workers understand the dangers of heat illness and how to prevent it,” Parker said in a statement.

    Casar, 34, a freshman lawmaker from Austin, staged a “thirst strike” Tuesday outside the U.S. Capitol, forgoing water breaks for nearly nine hours, to protest a new Texas law that bans local governments from requiring water breaks and other safety measures for outdoor workers. Casar called the law “insane″ and accused Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of being “on the wrong side of history.”

    At least 42 workers died in Texas between 2011 and 2021 from environmental heat exposure, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    “Democrats are going to stand up for common sense and for working people,″ Casar said.

    Ladd Keith, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona who studies heat policy and governance, said the record-breaking heat much of the nation is experiencing “is very much in line with climate change projections.” While not surprising, “they’re certainly a continuation of a concerning trend of climate impacts that we’ve seen,” he said.

    Despite the recent headlines, rising temperatures have typically not received the same level of attention as other climate risks, such as flooding and wildfires. Keith said.

    “Heat has just not been a topic at the national level or local level that we’ve even considered addressing until the last couple of years,” he said.

    However, Keith said the administration has ramped up its focus because of searing weather events, such as the heat dome in the Pacific Northwest in 2021 that prompted record temperatures and dozens of deaths across the region.

    OSHA fined a Florida farm supervisor last month for exposing workers to excessive heat after a 28-year-old worker from Mexico died at a farm in Parkland, Florida. Investigators determined the worker’s death could have been prevented if a labor contractor had followed established safety practices regarding heat-related hazards.

    ___

    Costley reported from New Orleans.

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  • Heat wave returns as Greece grapples with more wildfire evacuations

    Heat wave returns as Greece grapples with more wildfire evacuations

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    A third successive heat wave in Greece pushed temperatures back above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) across parts of the country following more nighttime evacuations from fires that have raged out of control for days

    Flames burn a tree in Vati village, on the Aegean Sea island of Rhodes, southeastern Greece, on Tuesday, July 25, 2023. A third successive heat wave in Greece pushed temperatures back above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) across parts of the country Tuesday following more nighttime evacuations from fires that have raged out of control for days. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

    The Associated Press

    RHODES, Greece — A third successive heat wave in Greece pushed temperatures back above 40 C (104 F) across parts of the country Tuesday following more nighttime evacuations from fires that have raged out of control for days.

    The latest evacuations orders were issued on the islands of Corfu and Evia, while a blaze on the island of Rhodes continued to move inland, torching mountainous forest areas, including part of a nature reserve.

    Desperate residents, many with wet towels around their necks to stave off the scorching heat, used shovels to beat back flames approaching their homes, while firefighting planes and helicopters resumed water drops at first light.

    Authorities said that more than 20,000 people has been involved in successive evacuations on the island, mostly tourists over the weekend, when fire swept through two coastal areas on the southeast of Rhodes.

    The European Union has sent 500 firefighters, 100 vehicles and seven planes from 10 member states, while Turkey, Israel, Egypt and other countries have also sent help.

    “For the 12th day, under extreme conditions of heat and strong winds, we are fighting nonstop on dozens of forest fire fronts … The Greek Fire Service has battled more than 500 fires — more than 50 a day,” said Vassilis Kikilias, the minister for climate crisis and civil protection.

    In Athens, authorities resumed afternoon closing hours at the ancient Acropolis, as part of broader measures to cope with the high heat.

    EU officials have blamed climate change for the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires across the European continent, noting that 2022 was the second-worst year for wildfire damage on record after 2017.

    ___

    Follow AP’s coverage of climate issues at https://apnews.com/climate-and-environment

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  • AP PHOTOS: People shade, hydrate and stay indoors in scorching heat on U.S.-Mexico border

    AP PHOTOS: People shade, hydrate and stay indoors in scorching heat on U.S.-Mexico border

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    ByGREGORY BULL Associated Press

    Sweat covers the face of Juan Carlos Biseno after dancing to music from his headphones as afternoon temperatures reach 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46.1 Celsius) July 19, 2023, in Calexico, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

    The Associated Press

    CALEXICO, Calif. — People withered in blistering heat on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, where temperatures hit a scorching highs this week and many got little relief from the sun.

    Maribel Padilla, part of the Brown Bag Coalition, met up with people who are homeless and particularly vulnerable to the heat in Calexico, on the border between Mexico and California, where temperatures hit 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 degrees Celsius). She provided them with a cold, wet towel, and some refreshments to give them respite. Many placed the towels over the heads to shield themselves and rehydrated with cool bottles of water.

    Just across the border in Mexicali, Mexico, many plunged into indoor pools for some exercise and cool comfort. An outdoor taekwondo class waited for the sun to set before exerting themselves in the sweltering heat.

    But there was little choice for those working outside, who sweated through their clothes in 115-degree Fahrenheit (46-degree Celsius) temperatures. Most others kept away from the outdoors, or stayed in shade cast by buildings.

    The southwestern U.S. has baked in record hot weather over the last week, and more is expected to come, as climate change bolstered by an El Nino, a cyclical and natural warming of the Pacific, pushes global temperatures to new highs.

    ___

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Tourists flee Rhodes wildfires in Greece’s largest-ever evacuation | CNN

    Tourists flee Rhodes wildfires in Greece’s largest-ever evacuation | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A large wildfire tearing through the Greek island of Rhodes forced thousands of tourists to flee their hotels in what Greek officials said was the largest evacuation effort in the country’s history.

    Those caught up in the blaze described chaotic and frightening scenes, with some having to leave on foot or find their own transport after being told to leave.

    The wildfire in the central and south part of Rhodes – a hugely popular island for holidaymakers – has been burning since Tuesday. It is the largest of a number of blazes in Greece, which is sweltering due to a heat wave that experts say is likely to become the country’s longest on record.

    Amy Leyden, a British tourist in Rhodes, told Sky News she was told she had to leave her hotel immediately or her and her family “would not make it.”

    “It was just terrifying,” she said. “We’ve got our 11-year-old daughter with us and we were walking down the road at two o’clock in the morning and the fire was catching up with us.”

    Cedric Guisset, a Belgian tourist, fled Saturday with nowhere to go. “We told the hotel about the messages we had received on our phones to evacuate the area, but they didn’t even know about it,” he told public radio station RTBF.

    “We really just took our identity cards, water and something to cover our faces and heads.”

    The Greek government said nearly 19,000 people had been evacuated on Rhodes since Saturday.

    Boats were used to take some tourists to safety.

    The government called the operation “the largest such effort Greece has ever seen,” and said 16,000 people, including tourists and residents, were transported by land and 3,000 by sea.

    According to the local fire service, there are currently three active fronts firefighters are focusing on in the central and south part of the island.

    The blaze is burning near the areas of Kiotari and Lardos, not far from the Lindos archaeological site. The site has not been threatened so far.

    Hotels, schools, sports centers and conference centers have been activated in safe parts of the island to host evacuees in need.

    Greece’s foreign ministry will set up a dedicated helpdesk to assist tourists on their return to their respective countries, according to the Greek government. Tour operators have additionally ordered charter flights to land in Rhodes without passengers “in order to pick up travelers who wish to leave the island,” it said.

    Eight people have been taken to hospital with respiratory problems, according to fire officials.

    British airline Jet2 canceled all flights and holiday offers to Rhodes on Sunday. Holiday group TUI has also canceled all holiday packages to the Greek island up to and including on Tuesday due to the ongoing wildfires, both companies have said in statements.

    According to the Greek Ministry of Civil Protection, 13 departments, including the Attica region where the capital city of Athens is located, were under red alert for wildfires Sunday, which is the highest state of alarm due to the extreme risk of fire.

    In Athens, visiting hours for the Acropolis and other archaeological sites have been revised due to soaring temperatures. Staff at some sites are on strike to protest working conditions.

    “We will probably go through 15 to 16 days of a heat wave, which has never happened before in our country,” the Director of Research at the National Observatory of Athens Kostas Lagouvardos told CNN.

    He told CNN that the streak could go beyond those days, but at the moment “it’s hard to predict.”

    The longest continuous heatwave that Greece has faced was 12 days long, back in July 1987, Lagouvardos said.

    Lagouvardos said temperatures in Athens this summer could possibly break the city’s all-time record, which was set in June 2007, when Athens registered 44.8 degrees Celsius (112.64 degrees Fahrenheit).

    A tourist cools off with ice cubes at the entrance to the Acropolis in central Athens.

    Large parts of the northern hemisphere have seen fierce temperatures, with Europe seeing dramatic shifts from one form of extreme weather to another.

    Italy’s northern region of Veneto was pounded with tennis-ball sized hail overnight on Wednesday, injuring at least 110 people. Emergency services responded to more than 500 calls for help due to damage to property and personal injuries, the Veneto regional civil protection said.

    The country also experienced record-breaking heat, with capital Rome hitting a new high temperature of 41 degrees Celsius on Tuesday. Earlier in the year the country was hit by devastating floods.

    In the Balkans, severe thunderstorms storms claimed several lives after hitting on Wednesday, CNN’s affiliate N1 reported Thursday.

    Scientists are warning that the extreme weather may only be a preview of what’s to come as the planet warms.

    “The weather extremes will continue to become more intense and our weather patterns could change in ways we yet can’t predict,” said Peter Stott, a science fellow in climate attribution at the UK Met Office told CNN.

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  • Deadly extreme heat is on the rise in national parks — a growing risk for America’s great outdoors | CNN

    Deadly extreme heat is on the rise in national parks — a growing risk for America’s great outdoors | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Extreme heat appears to be killing people in America’s national parks at an alarming pace this year, highlighting both its severity and the changing calculus of personal risk in the country’s natural places as climate change fuels more weather extremes.

    More people are suspected to have died since June 1 from heat-related causes in national parks than an average entire year, according to park service press releases and preliminary National Park Service data provided to CNN. No other year had five heat-related deaths by July 23, park mortality data that dates to 2007 shows, and the deadliest month for heat in parks – August – is yet to come.

    The deaths reported so far are still under investigation, but all five died in temperatures that hit 100 degrees, a searing microcosm of a much more widespread pattern of extreme heat that has broken more than 3,000 high temperature records across the US since early June.

    That kind of heat has proven an indiscriminate killer in the nation’s parks:

    • A 14-year-old boy died on a trail in southwest Texas’ Big Bend National Park in 119-degree heat, his 31-year-old father died seeking help to save him.
    • A 65 year-or-older man died hiking on June 1 in Big Bend.
    • A 57-year-old woman died hiking a trail in Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park.
    • A 71-year-old man collapsed and died outside a restroom in California’s Death Valley National Park after park rangers believe he hiked a nearby trail.
    • A 65-year-old man was found dead in his disabled vehicle on the side of the road in Death Valley National Park, with park rangers suspecting he succumbed to heat illness while driving and then baked in temperatures as high as 126 degrees.

    Heat is the deadliest type of weather, killing on average more than twice as many people each year as hurricanes and tornadoes combined. But heat deaths are notoriously difficult to track in the US, with one 2020 study estimating that they were undercounted in some of the most populous counties.

    The National Park Service faces the same challenges, and told CNN that the true toll of this year’s extreme heat and recent past heat may be even higher. They need to collect and corroborate death reports with hundreds of individual parks and the equally vast and complex web of local and state officials that medically determine cause of death.

    As a result, some of the most recent death statistics from 2020 to 2023 could “change significantly,” park spokespeople said.

    That’s already proven true. Two of this year’s five deaths happened after the park service provided the data to CNN in early July. Still, the current statistics offer a glimpse into the deadly potential of this unrelenting heat, especially in its epicenter: the Southwest.

    All of this year’s suspected heat-related deaths took place in just three national parks: Grand Canyon, Death Valley and Big Bend. These three parks are also responsible for more than half of the 68 heat-related deaths reported by the park service since 2007.

    And that’s no surprise – all three parks are located in the nation’s oven, the Southwest, and all but one of the deaths happened west of the Mississippi River.

    It’s normal for the Southwest to be hot. But the heat this year, especially the longevity of it, is far from normal. Phoenix, just a few hours south of the Grand Canyon, shattered its record for consecutive days at 110 degrees-plus and only dropped to 97 degrees overnight at times during the streak, a record warm low temperature.

    A recent report from Climate Central, a non-profit research group, found that the Southwest heat wave in the first half of July was made at least five times more likely by human-caused climate change.

    Average annual temperatures across the Southwest increased by 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit between 1901 and 2016, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, the federal government’s periodic climate change report. The climate crisis has also worsened the region’s most severe drought in centuries, which created an ongoing crisis over water supplies from the river that etched the Grand Canyon into the earth. And projections show that temperatures will continue to rise to the tune of 8.6 degrees – resulting in 45 more days over 90 degrees each year for parts of the region by 2100 under the worst-case scenarios.

    The country’s national parks are ground zero for this warming. A 2018 study found that they had warmed twice as fast as the rest of the US from 1895 to 2010 due to human-caused climate change.

    National parks in the Southwest and in Alaska were the “most severely damaged by human-caused climate change” and experienced the most pronounced warming, said Patrick Gonzalez, climate scientist at the University of California at Berkeley and the study’s author. But he also said that damage was happening “all across America and all across our national parks.”

    “Carbon pollution from cars, power plants and deforestation – human sources – has already damaged our national parks, and in years like this we see the potential acute damage, severe one year damage,” Gonzalez told CNN.

    Heat risk and damage to national parks will only increase if unabated carbon pollution continues, Gonzalez said. That’s changing the personal risk calculus for summer recreation now and in the future in increasingly hotter national parks.

    The 300 million-plus people who visit the parks each year are already encountering warmer temperatures and are at a greater risk for heat illness as a result. Park visitation also peaks during the summer, furthering that risk.

    The park service doesn’t universally keep track of heat-related illnesses that don’t result in death, but multiple park representatives said the number of heat illnesses was much greater than heat mortality. Multiple medical responses a week that are “probably heat-related” happen during the summer at Death Valley National Park, park spokesperson Abby Wines told CNN.

    Grand Canyon National Park doesn’t track heat-specific illness, but carries out hundreds of rescues and so-called “hiker assists” for less-severe issues most commonly because of “lack of physical conditioning,” park spokesperson Joelle Baird told CNN.

    Baird said they see a spike in ranger responses to heat-related illnesses when temperatures reach 95 degrees on trails at the midway point between the top and the bottom of the canyon.

    Extreme heat can trigger heat illness in as little as 20 to 30 minutes for people doing anything strenuous outdoors, like hiking, because heat acts as a “perfect storm,” which overloads the body until it eventually short-circuits and shuts down, Dr. Matthew Levy, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told CNN.

    Hiking was the most common cause of heat-related death in the national parks data, representing more than 60% of all deaths. Park spokespeople said that typically, less-experienced hikers find themselves in compromising situations by overestimating their abilities or underpreparing for the heat, but heat illness and death can and has happened in experienced hikers, too.

    Maggie Peikon is a self-proclaimed “avid hiker” who has climbed some of the country’s highest mountains and even scaled an active volcano in Indonesia.

    She said part of the allure of hiking for experienced hikers is to “challenge my will.” But even so, she said, hiking in this kind of heat isn’t worth it.

    “Most of the challenges I’ve pushed myself to do, there’s a level of enjoyment there, and it just feels like a punishment to go out when it’s that hot,” said Peikon, who works as the manager of communications at the American Hiking Society.

    “I think I’ve just learned what I’m capable of, and that’s not just from a physical standpoint, hiking is very mental as well,” Peikon told CNN. “That was something that has stuck with me on every single hike that I do, especially the challenging ones: What you’re capable of is entirely up to you.”

    Tourists stand next to an unofficial heat reading at Furnace Creek Visitor Center during a heat wave in Death Valley National Park.

    Personal responsibility weighs heavily in the policy direction the individual national parks take when dealing with the heat.

    Parks proactively message visitors about the heat online and in signage posted at the trails that warns of the dangerous and “tragic” consequences of high temperatures. Death Valley posts bright red “STOP Extreme Heat Danger” signs at low elevation trailheads, which urge people to stay off trails after 10 a.m. and to hike only at high elevations, where temperatures are lowest.

    “People are responsible for their own safety,” Death Valley spokesperson Abby Wines told CNN. “We try to get information out to people so they’re aware, but one of the problems with heat, I think, is that often people think it’s a matter of being tough enough. They think ‘oh, I might be uncomfortable, but that’s all and I can push through it.’ But heat is deadly.”

    It’s so hot in Death Valley that the park warns visitors that it can’t and won’t rescue people.

    “We don’t want to put our own staff at risk of heat fatality by doing a physical carry out in extreme heat conditions,” Wines said, adding that the medical helicopter can’t get enough lift to take off because temperatures are so hot.

    That was the case in the most recent death in Death Valley on July 19 when the temperature was 117 degrees, a park release notes.

    What parks seem to rarely do is close trails because of the heat. The park representatives CNN spoke to said there is no national policy or guidance to close if temperatures reach a certain level.

    Trails do close because of other kinds of extreme weather, including winter storms and tropical systems. Park officials said those decisions are made at the individual park level based on the hazards there and that it was technically possible individual parks could choose to close trails or limit access if the heat got too extreme.

    Trails in Lake Mead National Recreational area in Arizona and Nevada do close seasonally because of the heat, and Grand Canyon National Park has at least entertained the idea to close trails.

    “It is something that I’ve heard come up every single year, this time of year, so I don’t think it’s beyond the National Park Service or Grand Canyon,” Baird, Grand Canyon National Park’s spokesperson, told CNN. “I think the thought and stance has always been to push out more hiker education to try to change and influence people’s behavior rather than having a reactionary decision to close trails, because people can hike successfully. We just have to provide enough information and tools for them to be successful.”

    Grand Canyon is the deadliest park for extreme heat with 16 deaths since 2007, the preliminary data from the National Park Service would suggest, a toll Baird said would be “much higher” if the park didn’t also have one of the most robust and proactive responses to heat.

    Grand Canyon pioneered a Preventative Search and Rescue team after a particularly dangerous and taxing year for rescue teams in 1996.

    Emergency Services Coordinator James Thompson observes and directs operations during a search and rescue training exercise at the Grand Canyon.

    The teams are medically trained and meet hikers at the start of trails to make sure they are adequately prepared for the journey, provide assistance with water or snacks and even contact and check in with hikers once they’re on the trails.

    This preventative approach has decreased the number of expensive, “last resort” search and rescues that are typically done via helicopter. But despite these efforts, there are still between 300 and 350 search and rescues each year at Grand Canyon and there have been 172 so far this year, with around 70 coming since Memorial Day.

    “Grand Canyon is an amazing place, everyone should hike into the canyon if they have the ability to do so,” Baird said. “However, this time of year is not optimal.”

    Park officials and hiking experts recommended checking the weather and park alerts before going out on the trail, to get acclimated to heat before your trip and know your personal limits, to shorten activities outdoors, carry more water than you think you might need, find shadier trails, tour the park by air-conditioned car or even just skip the hike altogether to reduce the chance that heat continues to turn deadly.

    “It’s not worth the risk of experiencing heat illness because of the outcomes,” Andrea Walton, Southeast Region Public Affairs Specialist for the park service, told CNN. “At minimum you’re going to feel really bad the next day” or worse, “potentially ending up in the hospital, or worst case, experiencing a fatal incident.”

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  • Covering the heat wave in sizzling Phoenix, an AP photographer recounts a scare from heat exhaustion

    Covering the heat wave in sizzling Phoenix, an AP photographer recounts a scare from heat exhaustion

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    PHOENIX — Heat never scared me before.

    I’ve spent 23 years covering Phoenix as a photographer for The Associated Press, shooting golf tournaments, baseball games and other outdoor sporting events, the city’s growing homeless population, immigration and crime.

    And, of course, heat.

    Like most people around here, I talk about temperatures being in the teens as if it’s a given that people know to always put a one in front of that number.

    But this summer’s record-shattering heat wave has been like no other.

    No amount of water or Gatorade can keep you going in these conditions without adequate cool-downs throughout the day.

    My phone and cameras continually glitch out and stop working. Even my car’s air conditioning has struggled to keep up.

    In my car, I keep a thermometer that I once used to check the temperature of chemicals in a darkroom. The heat inside when the air conditioner is off is way hotter than the air outside, and the thermometer often goes up to 125 degrees Fahrenheit (51.6 degrees Celsius).

    In recent days it blew past that, with the needle registering well beyond where the numbers stop.

    On the morning of July 10, I spent more than three hours off and on photographing life outdoors. Heat features are tough in part because people aren’t stupid enough to be outside, unlike photojournalists.

    When I got home, I was exhausted. But I got up the next day and went back out for another consecutive day of temperatures above 110 Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius).

    At one point my camera stopped working, and I had to cool it down in the car. It burned my hand to hold onto it.

    On July 12, I covered a cooling shelter for homeless people and photographed a man at his tent in The Zone, an area of downtown blocks dotted by tents. The black asphalt streets were radiating heat.

    I was sweating so profusely it dripped off me like a basketball player in an intense game. It was disgusting. It wasn’t the first time this has happened and it’s why I often carry a towel to dry off and keep the sweat from dripping in my viewfinder.

    But then I realized there was no need to wipe down. I was dry. I stopped sweating altogether. My body had no more water to give. My legs started feeling chilled, an odd sensation. Then they cramped. It was obvious I needed to get out of the heat.

    But I didn’t think any more of it. That night I slept fitfully as temperatures remained high, and I had a headache.

    By Friday, July 14, I was super lethargic and just wanted the work week to end. I was done with covering heat.

    On Saturday I rested and thought, “I’m in Arizona. It is what it is.”

    After the weekend, I had a dermatology appointment on Tuesday to remove a spot of basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer. Such procedures have become almost routine after so many years working in Arizona.

    That day Phoenix broke its record for the longest streak above 110 Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius), marking the 19th day with such heat.

    When I got checked, they told me I was a mess. My blood pressure was clocked at 178/120. After telling me that, it shot up to 200/120. The nurse wanted to send me in an ambulance to the emergency room because they thought I was going to have a heart attack.

    It’s so surprising it seems funny now. I assumed I was just tired from work.

    I opted to see my doctor on Wednesday and was told I was suffering from heat exhaustion.

    I had precautionary blood work done the next day to make sure all is normal. But not without first experiencing more heat-related fallout: they couldn’t draw blood from either arm because I was still slightly dehydrated. Unfortunately that meant they took it through my hands, which wasn’t pleasant.

    The great news is, I’m fine. I spent two days inside and my blood pressure Friday was down to 128/72.

    I will be more cautious going forward until this heat wave passes and have developed a plan with my fellow photographer, Ross Franklin.

    In extreme heat, we will limit ourselves to 30– to 40-minute windows of shooting before breaking to cool down. We’re keeping chilled, damp towels in a cooler in our cars and about two to three times as much water and Gatorade as we would have normally.

    A separate cooler with plastic ice packs holds our cameras when we’re not shooting. We have extra dry towels for sweat. We also plan to send all our images from inside a cooled building, not from our cars as we usually do.

    And if we really feel bad, we promise to simply call it quits. No exceptions.

    We typically fight through not feeling well on assignments — but not with heat.

    It’s too risky.

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  • Covering the heat wave in sizzling Phoenix, an AP photographer recounts a scare from heat exhaustion

    Covering the heat wave in sizzling Phoenix, an AP photographer recounts a scare from heat exhaustion

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    PHOENIX — Heat never scared me before.

    I’ve spent 23 years covering Phoenix as a photographer for The Associated Press, shooting golf tournaments, baseball games and other outdoor sporting events, the city’s growing homeless population, immigration and crime.

    And, of course, heat.

    Like most people around here, I talk about temperatures being in the teens as if it’s a given that people know to always put a one in front of that number.

    But this summer’s record-shattering heat wave has been like no other.

    No amount of water or Gatorade can keep you going in these conditions without adequate cool-downs throughout the day.

    My phone and cameras continually glitch out and stop working. Even my car’s air conditioning has struggled to keep up.

    In my car, I keep a thermometer that I once used to check the temperature of chemicals in a darkroom. The heat inside when the air conditioner is off is way hotter than the air outside, and the thermometer often goes up to 125 degrees Fahrenheit (51.6 degrees Celsius).

    In recent days it blew past that, with the needle registering well beyond where the numbers stop.

    On the morning of July 10, I spent more than three hours off and on photographing life outdoors. Heat features are tough in part because people aren’t stupid enough to be outside, unlike photojournalists.

    When I got home, I was exhausted. But I got up the next day and went back out for another consecutive day of temperatures above 110 Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius).

    At one point my camera stopped working, and I had to cool it down in the car. It burned my hand to hold onto it.

    On July 12, I covered a cooling shelter for homeless people and photographed a man at his tent in The Zone, an area of downtown blocks dotted by tents. The black asphalt streets were radiating heat.

    I was sweating so profusely it dripped off me like a basketball player in an intense game. It was disgusting. It wasn’t the first time this has happened and it’s why I often carry a towel to dry off and keep the sweat from dripping in my viewfinder.

    But then I realized there was no need to wipe down. I was dry. I stopped sweating altogether. My body had no more water to give. My legs started feeling chilled, an odd sensation. Then they cramped. It was obvious I needed to get out of the heat.

    But I didn’t think any more of it. That night I slept fitfully as temperatures remained high, and I had a headache.

    By Friday, July 14, I was super lethargic and just wanted the work week to end. I was done with covering heat.

    On Saturday I rested and thought, “I’m in Arizona. It is what it is.”

    After the weekend, I had a dermatology appointment on Tuesday to remove a spot of basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer. Such procedures have become almost routine after so many years working in Arizona.

    That day Phoenix broke its record for the longest streak above 110 Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius), marking the 19th day with such heat.

    When I got checked, they told me I was a mess. My blood pressure was clocked at 178/120. After telling me that, it shot up to 200/120. The nurse wanted to send me in an ambulance to the emergency room because they thought I was going to have a heart attack.

    It’s so surprising it seems funny now. I assumed I was just tired from work.

    I opted to see my doctor on Wednesday and was told I was suffering from heat exhaustion.

    I had precautionary blood work done the next day to make sure all is normal. But not without first experiencing more heat-related fallout: they couldn’t draw blood from either arm because I was still slightly dehydrated. Unfortunately that meant they took it through my hands, which wasn’t pleasant.

    The great news is, I’m fine. I spent two days inside and my blood pressure Friday was down to 128/72.

    I will be more cautious going forward until this heat wave passes and have developed a plan with my fellow photographer, Ross Franklin.

    In extreme heat, we will limit ourselves to 30– to 40-minute windows of shooting before breaking to cool down. We’re keeping chilled, damp towels in a cooler in our cars and about two to three times as much water and Gatorade as we would have normally.

    A separate cooler with plastic ice packs holds our cameras when we’re not shooting. We have extra dry towels for sweat. We also plan to send all our images from inside a cooled building, not from our cars as we usually do.

    And if we really feel bad, we promise to simply call it quits. No exceptions.

    We typically fight through not feeling well on assignments — but not with heat.

    It’s too risky.

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  • As he leaves Phoenix’s blistering sun, AP’s climate news director reflects on desert life

    As he leaves Phoenix’s blistering sun, AP’s climate news director reflects on desert life

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    PHOENIX — I blink, and the edges of my eyelids feel like they are being singed. My cheeks burn as if they are being pressed with a hot iron ready to tackle a pile of wrinkled shirts. It is 4 p.m. I look at my 12-year-old son, whose face is flushed. He lets out a groan and puts his hand on his forehead to shield his eyes from the blistering sun.

    It is 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47 degrees Celsius).

    My family knows being in temperatures like this is dangerous. We’ve lived here for four years. This time, though, we are outside for only a few minutes to conduct an important experiment: How long will it take to cook a quesadilla on the sidewalk?

    Such is life these days in Phoenix, one of the hottest cities in the world. But for us, this summer is our last here; this weekend, I’m moving with my family to New York for my job as — wait for it — The Associated Press’ global climate and environment news director.

    I’M LEAVING TOWN DURING A UNIQUE SUMMER FOR PHOENIX

    Working with AP journalists around the globe on climate change stories, as I have for the past year since taking on this role, I recognize the irony. I’m leaving a city that is having a major climate change moment during a summer we may remember as an inflection point both in the advancement of global warming and its devastating extreme weather impacts and the developed world’s consciousness of what is happening. Developing countries have long been hit particularly hard by climate change.

    Earlier this week, Phoenix broke its own record for a major city with consecutive days over 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius). That isn’t just something for the record books, a quirky factoid for weather buffs. It’s significant because there is no end in sight to the heat — and all of July could see 110-degree temperatures or higher.

    That would be uncharted territory even for a city accustomed to dealing with extreme heat. It also raises questions about the long-term viability of a metropolitan area that was America’s fastest growing between 2010 and 2020, according to the U.S. Census.

    For decades, scientists have been warning that the continued burning of fossil fuels would lead to a warming of the planet and more frequent and intense extreme weather events. We have seen this play out in weather-related disasters around the globe, and Phoenix is not immune. But when the already extreme becomes super extreme, it provides a window into what could be a scary future.

    A ‘DESERT RAT’ MOVES ON

    “I’m a desert rat,” I’ve heard friends say, and four years in I know what they mean.

    The throngs that have moved here haven’t just come for the jobs, though booms in tech, higher education and other industries have brought many. Nor are they just here for cheaper housing compared to other major Western U.S. cities (it doesn’t exist anymore; Phoenix has gotten very expensive).

    Many people have a deep desire to be here, which may sound strange to many Americans who know only of the city’s infamous extreme summer heat. The Arizona desert, filled with giant saguaro cactuses, looming palm trees and menacing terrain, with the powerful sun always beaming above, has a beauty that evokes feelings of freedom and possibility.

    Eight months a year, Phoenix weather is nothing short of amazing. Sunny, temperatures ranging from 60 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit (16 to 29 degrees Celsius) and clear skies. Just about every day. The city and surrounding cities like Mesa, Gilbert, Scottsdale, Tempe, Chandler — all part of the larger metropolitan area locally referred to as “Valley of the Sun” — are easy to navigate because the land is flat. All has been designed in such a way that if feels like one big giant grid.

    Then the summer comes, and daily life must change drastically. Biking, hiking, camping and numerous other outdoor activities common during eight months, all but come to a halt. Construction workers do shifts that begin in the middle of the night and finish by the early morning. Kids go to trampoline parks, gyms and inside camps.

    People with pools at home take dips early in the morning and at night, as during the day the sun can make the water feel like a jacuzzi. Residents with means take their vacations out of state during the summer, or make weekend trips to Flagstaff, a two-hour drive north where temperatures are about 25 degrees cooler than Phoenix because of the high elevation.

    SOME THOUGHTS BEFORE DEPARTURE

    While most people figure out ways to cope, some are left behind. Homeless people, a population that has been growing, are particularly exposed. Shelters and cooling centers, which are essentially public buildings like libraries kept open for long hours, are all part of attempts to get them off the streets. With good reason: most heat-related deaths in Phoenix are not from people in their homes, but rather people outside.

    But for most residents, while the summers are brutal, we get into a flow because the weather has a rhythm.

    For several days at a time, the temperatures will top 110 degrees, sometimes into the high teens or get to 120 (49 degrees Celsius). But then, from one day to the next, the daily high temperatures will drop to the low 100s or even high 90s (32 to 38 degrees Celsius), which, after days of more intense heat, feels kind of breezy.

    The drops happen from cooler winds coming in, or intense bursts of rain, called monsoons. We all go outside, particularly in the mornings and late evenings, when temperatures drop enough to be outside and not feel like your body is trapped in an oven.

    After a few days of partial relief, the intense heat comes back. And we all go back inside and wait it out. We repeat the cycle while looking forward to the fall. That pattern of intense heat and temporary drops held even during 2020, also a record-breaking summer with 53 total days over 110.

    What worries me about this heat wave is that it’s not breaking. This could be a harbinger of future heat waves, in both Phoenix and around the world. As of Saturday, it’s 23 straight days of temperatures over 110 degrees; forecasts show the extreme heat could continue at least another 10 days. So far, city officials and most Phoenix residents, seem to be managing. But even if the city gets by largely unscathed, this period may well be viewed as the beginning of major changes — ones that are not for the better.

    And for those of you who have stayed with me this long, let’s not forget about the strange case of the sun-baked quesadilla. Did it cook? The answer: In 15 minutes, the cheese had melted into clumps, and the flour tortilla was hardened.

    “Gross,” said the 12-year-old. “I’ll take a bite,” I responded.

    Turns out he was right. We got rid of the quesadilla. Then, standing there in the Phoenix sun, we did the only sensible thing possible given everything around us: We went back inside and resumed packing, with our goodbye to this strangely baked city just ahead of us.

    ___

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Follow Peter Prengaman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/peterprengaman

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  • Tornado damages Pfizer plant in North Carolina as scorching heat and floods sock other parts of US

    Tornado damages Pfizer plant in North Carolina as scorching heat and floods sock other parts of US

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    RALEIGH, N.C. — A tornado heavily damaged a major Pfizer pharmaceutical plant in North Carolina on Wednesday, while torrential rain flooded communities in Kentucky and an area from California to South Florida endured more scorching heat.

    Pfizer confirmed that the large manufacturing complex was damaged by a twister that touched down shortly after midday near Rocky Mount, but said in an email that it had no reports of serious injuries. A later company statement said all employees were safely evacuated and accounted for.

    Parts of roofs were ripped open atop its massive buildings. The Pfizer plant stores large quantities of medicine that were tossed about, said Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone.

    “I’ve got reports of 50,000 pallets of medicine that are strewn across the facility and damaged through the rain and the wind,” Stone said.

    The plant produces anesthesia and other drugs as well as nearly 25% of the sterile injectable medications Pfizer supplies to U.S. hospitals, the company said on its website. Erin Fox, senior pharmacy director at University of Utah Health, said the damage “will likely lead to long-term shortages while Pfizer works to either move production to other sites or rebuilds.”

    The National Weather Service said in a tweet that the damage was consistent with an EF3 tornado with wind speeds up to 150 mph (240 kph).

    The Edgecombe County Sheriff’s Office, where part of Rocky Mount is located, said on Facebook that they had reports of three people injured in the tornado, and that two of them had life-threatening injuries.

    A preliminary report from neighboring Nash County said 13 people were injured and 89 structures were damaged, WRAL-TV reported.

    Three homes owned by Brian Varnell and his family members in the nearby Dortches area were damaged. He told the news outlet he is thankful they are all alive. His sister and her children hid in their home’s laundry room.

    “They got where they needed to be within the house and it all worked out for the best,” Varnell said near a home that was missing exterior walls and a large chunk of the roof.

    Elsewhere in the U.S., an onslaught of searing temperatures and rising floodwaters continued, with Phoenix breaking an all-time temperature record and rescuers pulling people from rain-swamped homes and vehicles in Kentucky.

    Forecasters said little relief appears in sight from the heat and storms. For example, Miami has endured a heat index of 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius) or more for weeks, with temperatures expected to rise this weekend.

    In Kentucky, meteorologists warned of a “life-threatening situation” in the communities of Mayfield and Wingo, which were inundated by flash flooding this week from thunderstorms. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency there Wednesday as more storms threatened.

    Forecasters expect up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain could yet fall on parts of Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri near where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers converge.

    The storm system is forecast to move Thursday and Friday over New England, where the ground remains saturated after recent floods. In Connecticut, a mother and her 5-year-old daughter died after being swept down a swollen river Tuesday. In southeastern Pennsylvania, a search continued for two children caught in flash flooding Saturday night.

    Meanwhile, Phoenix broke an all-time record Wednesday morning for a warm low temperature of 97 F (36.1 C), raising the threat of heat-related illness for residents unable to cool off adequately overnight. The previous record was 96 F (35.6 C) in 2003, the weather service reported.

    Lindsay LaMont, who works at the Sweet Republic ice cream shop Phoenix, said business had been slow during the day with people sheltering inside to escape the heat. “But I’m definitely seeing a lot more people come in the evening to get their ice cream when things start cooling off,” LaMont said.

    Heat-related deaths continue to rise in Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located. Public health officials Wednesday reported that six more heat-associated fatalities were confirmed last week, bringing the year’s total so far to 18. All six deaths didn’t necessarily occur last week as some may have happened weeks earlier but were confirmed as heat-related only after a thorough investigation.

    By this time last year, there had been 29 confirmed heat-associated deaths in the county and another 193 under investigation.

    Phoenix, a desert city of more than 1.6 million people, had set a separate record Tuesday among U.S. cities by marking 19 straight days of temperatures of 110 F (43.3 C) or more. It topped 110 again Wednesday.

    National Weather Service meteorologist Matthew Hirsh said Phoenix’s 119 F (48.3 C) high Wednesday tied the fourth highest temperature recorded in the city ever. The highest temperature of all time was 122 F (50 C), set in 1990.

    Across the country, Miami marked its 16th straight day of heat indexes in excess of 105 F (40.6 C). The previous record was five days in June 2019.

    “And it’s only looking to increase as we head into the later part of the week and the weekend,” said Cameron Pine, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

    The region has also seen 38 consecutive days with a heat index threshold of 100 F (37.8 C), and sea surface temperatures are reported to be several degrees warmer than normal.

    “There really is no immediate relief in sight,” Pine said.

    A 71-year-old Los Angeles-area man died at a trailhead in Death Valley National Park in eastern California on Tuesday afternoon as temperatures reached 121 F (49.4 C) or higher and rangers suspect heat was a factor, the National Park Service said in a statement Wednesday.

    It is possibly the second heat-related fatality in Death Valley this summer. A 65-year-old man was found dead in a car on July 3.

    Human-caused climate change and a newly formed El Nino are combining to shatter heat records worldwide, scientists say.

    The entire globe has simmered to record heat both in June and July. Nearly every day this month, the global average temperature has been warmer than the unofficial hottest day recorded before 2023, according to University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer.

    Atmospheric scientists say the global warming responsible for unrelenting heat in the Southwest also is making extreme rainfall a more frequent reality.

    ___

    Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia. Associated Press reporters Anita Snow in Phoenix, Freida Frisaro in Miami, JoNel Aleccia in Temecula, California, and Rebecca Reynolds in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed to this report.

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  • Tornado damages Pfizer plant in North Carolina as scorching heat and floods sock other parts of US

    Tornado damages Pfizer plant in North Carolina as scorching heat and floods sock other parts of US

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    RALEIGH, N.C. — A tornado heavily damaged a major Pfizer pharmaceutical plant in North Carolina on Wednesday, while torrential rain flooded communities in Kentucky and an area from California to South Florida endured more scorching heat.

    Pfizer confirmed that the large manufacturing complex was damaged by a twister that touched down shortly after midday near Rocky Mount, but said in an email that it had no reports of serious injuries. A later company statement said all employees were safely evacuated and accounted for.

    Parts of roofs were ripped open atop its massive buildings. The Pfizer plant stores large quantities of medicine that were tossed about, said Nash County Sheriff Keith Stone.

    “I’ve got reports of 50,000 pallets of medicine that are strewn across the facility and damaged through the rain and the wind,” Stone said.

    The plant produces anesthesia and other drugs as well as nearly 25% of the sterile injectable medications Pfizer supplies to U.S. hospitals, the company said on its website. Erin Fox, senior pharmacy director at University of Utah Health, said the damage “will likely lead to long-term shortages while Pfizer works to either move production to other sites or rebuilds.”

    The National Weather Service said in a tweet that the damage was consistent with an EF3 tornado with wind speeds up to 150 mph (240 kph).

    The Edgecombe County Sheriff’s Office, where part of Rocky Mount is located, said on Facebook that they had reports of three people injured in the tornado, and that two of them had life-threatening injuries.

    A preliminary report from neighboring Nash County said 13 people were injured and 89 structures were damaged, WRAL-TV reported.

    Three homes owned by Brian Varnell and his family members in the nearby Dortches area were damaged. He told the news outlet he is thankful they are all alive. His sister and her children hid in their home’s laundry room.

    “They got where they needed to be within the house and it all worked out for the best,” Varnell said near a home that was missing exterior walls and a large chunk of the roof.

    Elsewhere in the U.S., an onslaught of searing temperatures and rising floodwaters continued, with Phoenix breaking an all-time temperature record and rescuers pulling people from rain-swamped homes and vehicles in Kentucky.

    Forecasters said little relief appears in sight from the heat and storms. For example, Miami has endured a heat index of 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius) or more for weeks, with temperatures expected to rise this weekend.

    In Kentucky, meteorologists warned of a “life-threatening situation” in the communities of Mayfield and Wingo, which were inundated by flash flooding this week from thunderstorms. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear declared a state of emergency there Wednesday as more storms threatened.

    Forecasters expect up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain could yet fall on parts of Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri near where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers converge.

    The storm system is forecast to move Thursday and Friday over New England, where the ground remains saturated after recent floods. In Connecticut, a mother and her 5-year-old daughter died after being swept down a swollen river Tuesday. In southeastern Pennsylvania, a search continued for two children caught in flash flooding Saturday night.

    Meanwhile, Phoenix broke an all-time record Wednesday morning for a warm low temperature of 97 F (36.1 C), raising the threat of heat-related illness for residents unable to cool off adequately overnight. The previous record was 96 F (35.6 C) in 2003, the weather service reported.

    Lindsay LaMont, who works at the Sweet Republic ice cream shop Phoenix, said business had been slow during the day with people sheltering inside to escape the heat. “But I’m definitely seeing a lot more people come in the evening to get their ice cream when things start cooling off,” LaMont said.

    Heat-related deaths continue to rise in Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located. Public health officials Wednesday reported that six more heat-associated fatalities were confirmed last week, bringing the year’s total so far to 18. All six deaths didn’t necessarily occur last week as some may have happened weeks earlier but were confirmed as heat-related only after a thorough investigation.

    By this time last year, there had been 29 confirmed heat-associated deaths in the county and another 193 under investigation.

    Phoenix, a desert city of more than 1.6 million people, had set a separate record Tuesday among U.S. cities by marking 19 straight days of temperatures of 110 F (43.3 C) or more. It topped 110 again Wednesday.

    National Weather Service meteorologist Matthew Hirsh said Phoenix’s 119 F (48.3 C) high Wednesday tied the fourth highest temperature recorded in the city ever. The highest temperature of all time was 122 F (50 C), set in 1990.

    Across the country, Miami marked its 16th straight day of heat indexes in excess of 105 F (40.6 C). The previous record was five days in June 2019.

    “And it’s only looking to increase as we head into the later part of the week and the weekend,” said Cameron Pine, a National Weather Service meteorologist.

    The region has also seen 38 consecutive days with a heat index threshold of 100 F (37.8 C), and sea surface temperatures are reported to be several degrees warmer than normal.

    “There really is no immediate relief in sight,” Pine said.

    A 71-year-old Los Angeles-area man died at a trailhead in Death Valley National Park in eastern California on Tuesday afternoon as temperatures reached 121 F (49.4 C) or higher and rangers suspect heat was a factor, the National Park Service said in a statement Wednesday.

    It is possibly the second heat-related fatality in Death Valley this summer. A 65-year-old man was found dead in a car on July 3.

    Human-caused climate change and a newly formed El Nino are combining to shatter heat records worldwide, scientists say.

    The entire globe has simmered to record heat both in June and July. Nearly every day this month, the global average temperature has been warmer than the unofficial hottest day recorded before 2023, according to University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer.

    Atmospheric scientists say the global warming responsible for unrelenting heat in the Southwest also is making extreme rainfall a more frequent reality.

    ___

    Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia. Associated Press reporters Anita Snow in Phoenix, Freida Frisaro in Miami, JoNel Aleccia in Temecula, California, and Rebecca Reynolds in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed to this report.

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  • Scientists say Florida Keys coral reefs are already bleaching as water temperatures hit record highs

    Scientists say Florida Keys coral reefs are already bleaching as water temperatures hit record highs

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    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Some Florida Keys coral reefs are losing their color weeks earlier than normal this summer because of record-high water temperatures, meaning they are under stress and their health is potentially endangered, federal scientists said.

    The corals should be vibrant and colorful this time of year, but are swiftly going white, said Katey Lesneski, research and monitoring coordinator for Mission: Iconic Reefs, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched to protect Florida coral reefs.

    “The corals are pale, it looks like the color’s draining out,” said Lesneski, who has spent several days on the reefs over the last two weeks. “And some individuals are stark white. And we still have more to come.”

    Scientists with NOAA this week raised their coral bleaching warning system to Alert Level 2 for the Keys, their highest heat stress level out of five. That level is reached when the average water surface temperature is about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) above the normal maximum for eight straight weeks.

    Surface temperatures around the Keys have been averaging about 91 degrees (33 Celsius), well above the normal mid-July average of 85 degrees (29.5 Celsius), said Jacqueline De La Cour, operations manager for NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch program. Previous Alert Level 2s were reached in August, she said.

    Coral reefs are made up of tiny organisms that link together. The reefs get their color from the algae that live inside them and are the corals’ food. When temperatures get too high, the coral expels the algae, making the reefs appear white or bleached. That doesn’t mean they are dead, but the corals can starve and are more susceptible to disease.

    Andrew Bruckner, research coordinator at the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, said some coral reefs began showing the first signs of bleaching two weeks ago. Then in the last few days, some reefs lost all their color. That had never been recorded before Aug. 1. The peak for bleaching typically happens in late August or September.

    “We are at least a month ahead of time, if not two months,” Bruckner said. “We’re not yet at the point where we are seeing any mortality … from bleaching. It is still a minor number that are completely white, certain species, but it is much sooner than we expected.”

    Still, forecasting what will happen the rest of the summer is hard, De La Cour and Bruckner said. While water temperatures could continue to spike — which could be devastating — a tropical storm or hurricane could churn the water and cool it down. Dusty air from the Sahara Desert moving across the Atlantic and settling over Florida could dampen the sun’s rays, lowering temperatures.

    Because of climate change and other factors, the Keys waters have lost 80% to 90% of their coral over the last 50 years, Bruckner said. That affects not only marine life that depends on the reefs for survival, but also people — coral reefs are a natural buffer against storm surge from hurricanes and other storms. There is also an economic impact because tourism from fishing, scuba diving and snorkeling is heavily dependent on coral reefs.

    “People get in the water, let’s fish, let’s dive — that’s why protecting Florida’s coral reef is so critical,” De La Cour said.

    Both scientists said it is not “all doom and gloom.” A 20-year, large-scale effort is underway to rebuild Florida’s coral back to about 90% of where it was 50 years ago. Bruckner said scientists are breeding corals that can better withstand the heat and are using simple things like shade covers and underwater fans to cool the water to help them survive.

    “We are looking for answers and we are trying to do something, rather than just looking away,” Bruckner said.

    Breeding corals can encourage heat resistance in future generations of the animals, said Jason Spadaro, coral reef restoration program manager for Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium in Sarasota, Florida. That could be vital to saving them, he said.

    Spadaro and others who have visited the corals said they have noticed the coral bleaching is worse in the lower Keys than in the more northern parts of the area. The Keys have experienced bad bleaching years in the past, but this year it is “really aggressive and it’s really persistent,” he said.

    “It’s going to be a rough year for the reef. It hammers home the need to continue this important work,” he said.

    The early bleaching is happening during a year when water temperatures are spiking earlier than normal, said Ross Cunning, a research biologist at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. The Keys are experiencing water temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius), which would normally not occur until August or September, he said.

    The hot water could lead to a “disastrous bleaching event” if it does not wane, Cunning said.

    “We’re seeing temperatures now that are even higher than what we normally see at peak, which is what makes this particularly scary,” Cunning said.

    De La Cour said she has no doubt that the warming waters are caused by human-made global warming and that needs to be fixed for coral to survive.

    “If we do not reduce the greenhouse gas emissions we are emitting and don’t reduce the greenhouse gases that are already in the atmosphere, we are creating a world where coral reefs cannot exist, no matter what we do,” she said.

    ___

    Whittle reported from Portland, Maine.

    ___

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Second heat wave in as many weeks grips Mediterranean while fires hit Spain, Switzerland and Greece

    Second heat wave in as many weeks grips Mediterranean while fires hit Spain, Switzerland and Greece

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    MILAN — Officials warned residents and tourists packing Mediterranean destinations on Tuesday to stay indoors during the hottest hours as the second heat wave in as many weeks hits the region and Greece, Spain and Switzerland battled wildfires.

    In Italy, Red Cross teams checked on the elderly by phone while in Portugal they took to social media to warn people not to leave pets or children in parked cars. In Greece, volunteers handed out drinking water, and in Spain they reminded people to protect themselves from breathing in smoke from fires.

    Several parts of southern Europe are sweating through a new heat wave, amplified by climate change, that is expected to persist for days. The U.N. weather agency said that temperatures in Europe could break the 48.8-degree Celsius (119.8-degree Fahrenheit) record set in Sicily two years ago, as concerns grew the heat would provoke a spike in deaths.

    In Cyprus, health authorities confirmed that a 90-year-old man died over the weekend from heatstroke while six other elderly people have been hospitalized. All seven suffered heatstroke at home last week as temperatures surpassed 43 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit).

    “Heat waves are really an invisible killer,” Panu Saaristo, emergency health unit team leader for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told a briefing in Geneva. “We are experiencing hotter and hotter temperatures for longer stretches of time every single summer here in Europe.”

    Heat records are being shattered all over the world, and scientists say there is a good chance that 2023 will go down as the hottest year on record, with measurements going back to the middle of the 19th century.

    June saw the warmest global average temperature, according to Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, and the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization predicted that a number of heat records were set to fall this summer. The global organization said unprecedented sea surface temperatures and low Arctic sea-ice levels were largely to blame.

    Human-caused climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas is making the world hotter and is being amplified by the naturally occurring El Nino weather phenomenon. But the current El Nino only started a few months ago and is still weak to moderate and isn’t expected to peak until winter.

    Temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) were forecast to persist not only in the Mediterranean, but across North America, Asia and North Africa.

    In Italy, health officials warned of extreme temperatures in 20 cities, rising to 23 on Wednesday, from Bolzano in the north to Palermo in the south.

    In Greece, where a second heat wave is expected to hit Thursday, three large wildfires burned outside Athens for a second day. Thousands of people evacuated from coastal areas south of the capital returned to their homes Tuesday when a fire finally receded after they spent the night on beaches, hotels and public facilities.

    But wildfires continued to burn out of control to the north and west of Athens.

    Authorities last week introduced changes in working hours and ordered afternoon closures of the Acropolis and other ancient sites to allow workers to cope with the high heat. Temperatures as high as 44 C (111 F) are expected in parts of central and southern Greece by the end of the week.

    Most of Spain is under alert for high to extreme heat with forecasts calling for peak temperatures of 43 C (109 F) in areas along the Ebro River in the northeast and on the island of Mallorca. Spain is also dealing with a prolonged drought that has increased concerns about the risk of wildfires.

    Some 400 firefighters assisted by nine water-dumping aircraft labored to extinguish a wildfire that burned for a fourth consecutive day on La Palma in Spain’s Canary Islands. Authorities said that a perimeter has been established around the blaze but that it is still active.

    In Switzerland, some 150 firefighters, police, troops and other emergency teams backed by helicopters fanned out Tuesday to fight a wildfire that engulfed a mountainside in the southwestern Wallis region, evacuating residents of four villages and hamlets in the area.

    In a report Monday, the U.N. weather agency said that a committee of experts has verified the accuracy of the 48.8 degree Celsius record set on August 11, 2021, in Sicily. A full report has not yet been published.

    The previous verified record of 48 degrees Celsius (118.4 degrees Fahrenheit) was set in Athens on July 10, 1977.

    “These are not your normal weather systems of the past. They have arrived as a consequence of climate change,” said John Nairn, senior extreme heat adviser for WMO. “It is global warming, and it’s going to continue for some time.”

    Nairn noted a sixfold increase in simultaneous heat waves since the 1980s, “and the trend line isn’t changing.”

    ___

    Keaten reported from Geneva. Associated Press writers Dana Beltaji in London, Derek Gatopoulos in Athens, Joseph Wilson in Barcelona and Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus contributed.

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  • Wind-fanned wildfires force thousands to flee seaside resorts outside Greek capital

    Wind-fanned wildfires force thousands to flee seaside resorts outside Greek capital

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    Wildfires outside Athens forced thousands to flee seaside resorts, closed highways and gutted vacation homes Monday, with high winds pushing flames through hillside scrub and pine forests parched by days of extreme heat

    ByPETROS GIANNAKOURIS and DEREK GATOPOULOS Associated Press

    Fire approaches houses in Kalamaki near Agioi Theodori about 60 Kilometres west of Athens , on Monday, July 17, 2023. Two wildfires threatened homes in areas outside Athens, where winds of up to 70 kph made the flames difficult to contain. Most of southern Greece, including greater Athens, was an elevated level of alert for fire risk, while more extreme temperatures are expected later this week. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

    The Associated Press

    LOUTRAKI, Greece — Wildfires outside Athens forced thousands to flee seaside resorts, closed highways and gutted vacation homes Monday, as high winds pushed flames through hillside scrub and pine forests parched by days of extreme heat.

    Authorities issued evacuation orders for at least six seaside communities as two major wildfires edged closer to summer resort towns and gusts of wind hit 70 kph (45 mph).

    The army, police special forces and volunteer rescuers freed retirees from their homes, rescued horses from a stable, and helped monks flee a monastery threatened by the flames.

    Before nightfall, water-dropping planes and helicopters tackled the flames near Lagonisi, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of the capital. The second large wildfire broke out in a wooded area near the resort town of Loutraki, some 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of Athens, where a children’s summer camp and rehabilitation center for seniors were evacuated, local officials said.

    Fire Service spokesman Yiannis Artopios said the strong and changeable winds and mountainous terrain in which both fires broke out were slowing the firefighting effort.

    “The conditions are changing constantly and this has to be matched by our response. We have ordered multiple evacuations,” he said. The evacuees gathered along the coastline or were put up in schools and hotels, while coast guard vessels were dispatched to smoke-heavy beachfronts to assist if needed.

    On a visit to Brusssels, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis described the risk posed by wildfires this month as “extremely difficult” to deal with.

    “We have always had wildfires and we always will have them. But with the effects of the climate crisis, we are experiencing fires with increasing intensity,” Mitsotakis said, speaking on the margins of talks between leaders from the European Union and Latin American and Carribean countries.

    Greater Athens and much of southern Greece were on the second highest level of alert for wildfires Monday and Tuesday following a four-day heat wave that eased over the weekend. More heat wave temperatures are expected later in the week.

    Residents and visitors in areas affected by the two fires received cell phone alerts from the Civil Protection Ministry. Loutraki Mayor Giorgos Gionis said municipal workers were also assisting seniors in the evacuations, adding that the operation had been impeded by cell phone reception outages.

    Local officials confirmed that homes had been destroyed and badly damaged in both fires. ___ Gatopoulos reported from Athens

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