Climate Change: Intense Heat Waves, Pyrocumulonimbus Firestorms

"We haven't seen anything close to the most intense heat waves possible under today's climate, let alone the ones we expect to see in the coming decades."

"Every time record temperatures or precipitation go well beyond what we've experienced during our lifetime, that's usually when we're unprepared and the damage is largest."

"We should no longer be surprised if we see records smashed by large margins."

Erich Fischer, climate scientist, ETH Zurich 

"[New research shows that] we must expect extreme event records to be broken -- not just by small margins, but quite often by very large ones."

"This highlights the huge challenge to improve preparedness, build resilience and adapt society to conditions that have never previously been experienced."

Rowan Sutton, climate scientist, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Reading

B.C. Wildfire Service responded to the Brenda Creek wildfire (K51924) burning south of the Okanagan Connector, highly visible from the roadside. Photo by B.C. Wildfire Service /PNG

As scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change begin two weeks of virtual meetings for the purpose of finalizing their next global climate science assessment, a study was published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, that warned the next three decades would see "record-shattering" heat waves, two to seven times more frequently around the world, than what has occurred over the past three decades.

Canada, Cyprus, Cuba, Turkey, Northern Ireland, Antarcitica have all recorded their warmest-ever temperatures in the past two years. Should current greenhouse gas emissions trend continue record-breaking heat waves may be three to 21 times more frequent beyond 2050, according to the study.The researchers used climate modelling in the calculation of the likelihood of record-breaking heat lasting at least seven consecutive days, far surpassing earlier records.

Given such extremes, the study warns that communities need to be preparing for such extremes. The June heat wave that struck Canada was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people in British Columbia, reaching 49.6C in the village of Lytton, when a heat dome straddled the sky over the area, the intense heat contributing to an explosion of wildfires, one of which completely destroyed the evacuated town.

 

Damaged buildings are seen in Lytton, B.C., on July 9, after a wildfire destroyed most of the village on June 30. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press)

 

The study suggests that should greenhouse gas emissions be cut aggressively the likelihood of heat waves while remaining high, would result in diminishing opportunities of exceeding heat records over time.

"It was probably the single largest pyrocumulonimbus storm of the year so far. In fact, we're still tracking the smoke plume from that storm as it's travelling around the world and it's about to kind of come full circle back over [the] U.S.A. and Canada."

"When you get all those three things together [fuel, heat and wind], you get the perfect triple that we call fire weather. So, hot, dry and windy."

"It’s just like if you have a stove and you have a small burner — you’re not going to get as much of a fast boil in your pot as if you had a really hot, intense burner."

"So, the big, large fire just makes it that much easier for the air to be completely upset. And then if you do form a cloud, then that generates even more buoyancy and that feeds back down to the fire."

Michael Fromm, meteorologist, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory

"The fire creates the storm and then the storm creates lightning, which can cause more fires."

"That runaway feedback is the dangerous part."

Simon Donner, climate scientist, University of British Columbia

"It's been an exceptional year."

"Most of them [Canadian Forces firefighting teams] are actually camping along the fire lines overnight."

"During the day, they walk the fire line and check for any areas where there's flare-ups or hot spots and they suppress those."

Lt.-Col. Jesse van Eijk

A pyrocumulonimbus cloud generated by the Clear Range bushfire to the south of Canberra, Australia, February 1, 2020, Brook Mitchell/Getty  

 

Wildfires in Canada generated through a combination of intense heat and drought conditions are so extreme they generate their own weather systems. The phenomenon is known as a pyrocumulonimbus firestorm, tracked this year as they occur in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario. The first one tracked in May occurred in Manitoba. B.C.'s Lytton brewed up firestorms on two successive days in late June, hitting a Canadian temperature high of 49.6C a day prior to a wildfire erupting.

Emergency Management BC announced the presence of over 250 active wildfires charring B.C. forests where 4,142 square kilometres of land has burned since April 1 from 1,215 wildfires. The situation so dire that Canadian Forces were deployed to British Columbia and Manitoba to fight the fires, assisting crews from the province in monitoring wildfires.