The all-time Canadian heat record is in danger of being broken during this heat wave. Already, temperatures in the lower 40s Celsius are being recorded and temperatures as high as 47 C are forecast in some locations. The all-time Canadian record is 45 C on July 5, 1937 in Midale and Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan. Many stations will record their own all-time records during this event.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/western-canada-heatwave-1.6081519

The Warning Preparedness Meteorologist for the Pacific region with Environment and Climate Change Canada has stated that the extreme nature of this heat wave is a direct result of human-caused climate change, which I would accept as being true. However, do the people with CPDN think there would be a point to do an attribution simulation on this event sometime down the road to do a quantification of this?

The Oxford people only co-ordinate these studies.

It's up to some research group somewhere in the world to start / run a project about some weather / climate work that interests them.
In this case, the nearest group that we've had, would be the one in Oregon, and they "disappeared" early last year.

Can verify. Is way hot out here. :/

I actually have some of my crunchers shut down for the heat, it's just too warm to run them and keep my solar office cool as well. Holding a 30F delta is doable in here, but not with a lot of loads running. House solar is just keeping the house livable and exporting what it can...

Lytton British Colombia set a new all-time Canadian high temperature record on the 28th at 47.9 C (118.2 F). This smashes the old record for Canada of 45.0 C at a couple Saskatchewan stations back in July 1937.

Edit...The high at Lytton got up to 49.5 C (121.1 F) on the 29th. That's 8 F warmer than those previous Canadian record highs in 1937.

The all-time Canadian heat record is in danger of being broken during this heat wave. Already, temperatures in the lower 40s Celsius are being recorded and temperatures as high as 47 C are forecast in some locations. The all-time Canadian record is 45 C on July 5, 1937 in Midale and Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan. Many stations will record their own all-time records during this event.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/western-canada-heatwave-1.6081519

The Warning Preparedness Meteorologist for the Pacific region with Environment and Climate Change Canada has stated that the extreme nature of this heat wave is a direct result of human-caused climate change, which I would accept as being true. However, do the people with CPDN think there would be a point to do an attribution simulation on this event sometime down the road to do a quantification of this?

Interestingly, UK met office have stated it is due to climate change.

Dave, that's not a surprise at all. It would be interesting to see how much less likely this would be under a pre-industrial climate and how much more likely this scale and intensity of an event would be under the RCP4.5, RCP6, and RCP8.5 scenarios. As far as I can see, the RCP2.6 is pretty much impossible to attain at this juncture.

Regardless, this must be a wake-up call for us North Americans.

And now Lytton appears to be no more...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-wildfires-lytton-july-1-2021-1.6087311

Regardless, this must be a wake-up call for us North Americans.

It won't be.

The concern is "getting back to normal." That will include using this as an excuse to buy more consumer goods (Can you imagine being an air conditioner salesman right now? Buy a boat in a week if you can get supply of equipment...), and whining that nobody else is doing anything about the problem ("I voted for the right person, what more could you ask of me? Anyway, out for the weekend, got a little rental over in Spain...").

Solar and wind will continue to be built out, but most of the new production just goes to help keep up with the increasing energy use, not actually offsetting an awful lot. Most of the reduction in coal has been due to a switch to natural gas turbines, and if you use a short term accounting of methane in the atmosphere, this is far from a win - it's 20x in the 100 year span, but 80x in the 20 year span - and just about everything that can leak methane is, and is leaking more than anyone seems to realize (overflight methane measurements reliably find far, far higher readings than any sort of ground based estimations - it's coming from somewhere, just hard to say exactly where in the landfill/wells/etc is leaking).

Nobody is willing to sacrifice anything in terms of energy use, or increasingly useless financial assets. Try suggesting to people that they might not need the AC set at 68, or might be able to use a bit less energy, and watch the shrieking commence. So I don't see anything changing.

So I don't see anything changing.

I don't either. But it is not what we see that will save the world (if it is to be saved). It will be something like fusion technology, or a more efficient catalyst for the production of hydrogen for green fuels that
can be used with existing engines. In other words, something that works with the present system to benefit users now. And it won't happen by accident, but by a lot of research into basic physics and materials.

But you are right that expecting people to take the long view and sacrifice something for the future usually doesn't work. They need to see a benefit now.
There is no guarantee that it will happen.

But you are right that expecting people to take the long view and sacrifice something for the future usually doesn't work. They need to see a benefit now.
There is no guarantee that it will happen.

A similar problem to getting everyone into electric cars. Holdups at the moment are vehicle range and lack of charging points. Not to mention the different connectors and chargers for different makes of vehicle as well as not everone can have a charging point at home due to not having off road parking.

But it is not what we see that will save the world (if it is to be saved).

We have the ability and technology to radically reduce global emissions, should we care to do so.

What we do not have is the technology to radically reduce global emissions, while still participating in the hugely wasteful consumption and energy use that our modern economies are based around and that the entire planet is trying to achieve.

A stiff carbon tax (refund 90% of it to citizens weekly or monthly) would rapidly encourage reductions in emissions, because the winning strategy in a "tax and refund" scheme is to be ahead of the next guy - if you can cut your emissions more, faster, you get a nice payout bonus. Done properly with tariffs, it would discourage importing crap made on Chinese coal energy as well, though I'm certain that would be gamed extensively. Would it reduce consumption? Yes. Good.

It will be something like fusion technology,

We've tried most of the cheap ways to do small scale, net energy positive fusion we can think of. The current experiments are staggeringly expensive, and even if they do manage to be net energy positive, it's not terribly useful if it can't generate energy at competitive costs. A fusion plant that's carbon emissions free (after construction, don't ask about the concrete) and generates power at a mere $10/kWh isn't going to be revolutionizing anything.

or a more efficient catalyst for the production of hydrogen for green fuels...

That would be useful, but mostly if paired with carbon capture for liquid hydrocarbons. And I don't think it's really needed for much beyond aviation. Batteries work well enough on the ground.

...but by a lot of research into basic physics and materials.

The problem there is that you eventually run out of space to explore. There are only so many ways to combine things to accomplish something, and I don't expect any revolutions in any of this space - it's very well explored. You'll see incremental improvements and perhaps eventually some of the lab promises delivered (solid electrolyte cells), but it's all incremental. We've run out of lighter useful elements to make batteries out of, and for things like solar, there are very real physical limits we're closing in on with regards to efficiency, unless you want to start doing multi-layer cells that are used in satellites.

You can't beat thermodynamics, and you can only be so creative around the edges.

A similar problem to getting everyone into electric cars. Holdups at the moment are vehicle range and lack of charging points. Not to mention the different connectors and chargers for different makes of vehicle as well as not everone can have a charging point at home due to not having off road parking.

Holdups are that there's not nearly enough battery production capacity to provide for more than a small fraction of new vehicles right now, and there's a very long ramp to get that up to useful rates.

J1772 is pretty standard for AC charging now (I can't think of anything other than Tesla that doesn't use that), and DC fast charging is mostly standardizing on CCS (at least in the US where I'm based).

Once homes with garages and apartments are solved, then roadside charging can be addressed, but there's simply not enough vehicles being produced right now.

The better transition option for the next decade or two is PHEV - Chevy Volt and such. Use a small battery pack for daily driving, with a small gas engine for extended range operation. You can build 5 Volts on the cells used in a single long range Tesla, and offset radically more emissions that way.[/i]

We've tried most of the cheap ways to do small scale, net energy positive fusion we can think of.

I don't think so.
https://asiatimes.com/?s=fusion

But your other points are conceding that many approaches won't work, except you like small battery-powered cars.
Swell. But most people don't. They won't usually give up what they have now for a long-term benefit.

As I said, it will take some considerable science and engineering, and might not work.

Canadian inferno: northern heat exceeds worst-case climate models

But the intensity of the heat in the north-west Americas this year and Siberia last year has taken many scientists by surprise and suggested extra factors may be involved in northern latitudes.

One theory is that the recent temperature spike might have been caused not just by global heating, but by slowing weather systems that get stuck in one place for an extended period, which gives them time to intensify and cause more damage. This was an important factor in the devastation in Texas caused by Hurricane Harvey in 2018, which sat above Houston for several days rather than blowing inland and weakening. Blocked high-pressure fronts were also blamed for the blistering heatwave in Europe in 2019.

Experts at the Potsdam Institute and elsewhere believe the rapid heating in the Arctic and decline of sea ice is making the jet stream wiggle in large, meandering patterns, so-called Rossby resonance waves, trapping high- and low-pressure weather systems in one location for a longer time.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/02/canadian-inferno-northern-heat-exceeds-worst-case-climate-models

Regardless, this must be a wake-up call for us North Americans.

It won't be.

The concern is "getting back to normal." That will include using this as an excuse to buy more consumer goods (Can you imagine being an air conditioner salesman right now? Buy a boat in a week if you can get supply of equipment...), and whining that nobody else is doing anything about the problem ("I voted for the right person, what more could you ask of me? Anyway, out for the weekend, got a little rental over in Spain...").

Solar and wind will continue to be built out, but most of the new production just goes to help keep up with the increasing energy use, not actually offsetting an awful lot. Most of the reduction in coal has been due to a switch to natural gas turbines, and if you use a short term accounting of methane in the atmosphere, this is far from a win - it's 20x in the 100 year span, but 80x in the 20 year span - and just about everything that can leak methane is, and is leaking more than anyone seems to realize (overflight methane measurements reliably find far, far higher readings than any sort of ground based estimations - it's coming from somewhere, just hard to say exactly where in the landfill/wells/etc is leaking).

Nobody is willing to sacrifice anything in terms of energy use, or increasingly useless financial assets. Try suggesting to people that they might not need the AC set at 68, or might be able to use a bit less energy, and watch the shrieking commence. So I don't see anything changing.

________________
Methane leak or leaking methane, has the Bovine population increased so much?
I suppose people with skin colour adapted to this heat will survive and the rest will go the way of the Dodo.
Anyway, the third world has got nothing to do with this scenario. Go bomb the living daylights the pristine, untouched, virgin forests of Afghanistan. Produce pollution out of proportion and then blame the Bovines and their methane rich farts.

But it is not what we see that will save the world (if it is to be saved).

We have the ability and technology to radically reduce global emissions, should we care to do so.

What we do not have is the technology to radically reduce global emissions, while still participating in the hugely wasteful consumption and energy use that our modern economies are based around and that the entire planet is trying to achieve.

A stiff carbon tax (refund 90% of it to citizens weekly or monthly) would rapidly encourage reductions in emissions, because the winning strategy in a "tax and refund" scheme is to be ahead of the next guy - if you can cut your emissions more, faster, you get a nice payout bonus. Done properly with tariffs, it would discourage importing crap made on Chinese coal energy as well, though I'm certain that would be gamed extensively. Would it reduce consumption? Yes. Good.

It will be something like fusion technology,

We've tried most of the cheap ways to do small scale, net energy positive fusion we can think of. The current experiments are staggeringly expensive, and even if they do manage to be net energy positive, it's not terribly useful if it can't generate energy at competitive costs. A fusion plant that's carbon emissions free (after construction, don't ask about the concrete) and generates power at a mere $10/kWh isn't going to be revolutionizing anything.

or a more efficient catalyst for the production of hydrogen for green fuels...

______________________________


That would be useful, but mostly if paired with carbon capture for liquid hydrocarbons. And I don't think it's really needed for much beyond aviation. Batteries work well enough on the ground.

...but by a lot of research into basic physics and materials.

The problem there is that you eventually run out of space to explore. There are only so many ways to combine things to accomplish something, and I don't expect any revolutions in any of this space - it's very well explored. You'll see incremental improvements and perhaps eventually some of the lab promises delivered (solid electrolyte cells), but it's all incremental. We've run out of lighter useful elements to make batteries out of, and for things like solar, there are very real physical limits we're closing in on with regards to efficiency, unless you want to start doing multi-layer cells that are used in satellites.

You can't beat thermodynamics, and you can only be so creative around the edges.

A similar problem to getting everyone into electric cars. Holdups at the moment are vehicle range and lack of charging points. Not to mention the different connectors and chargers for different makes of vehicle as well as not everone can have a charging point at home due to not having off road parking.

Holdups are that there's not nearly enough battery production capacity to provide for more than a small fraction of new vehicles right now, and there's a very long ramp to get that up to useful rates.

J1772 is pretty standard for AC charging now (I can't think of anything other than Tesla that doesn't use that), and DC fast charging is mostly standardizing on CCS (at least in the US where I'm based).

Once homes with garages and apartments are solved, then roadside charging can be addressed, but there's simply not enough vehicles being produced right now.

The better transition option for the next decade or two is PHEV - Chevy Volt and such. Use a small battery pack for daily driving, with a small gas engine for extended range operation. You can build 5 Volts on the cells used in a single long range Tesla, and offset radically more emissions that way.[/i]

_____________________
Nopes, you are looking the wrong way. Look at all the ordinances dropped on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Panama, Viet Nam just to name a few. Crocodile tears will not help. Just fumigate the trousers of some who seem to be infested with ants up their pants.

Climate Change Drove Western Heat Wave’s Extreme Records, Analysis Finds

The extraordinary heat wave that scorched the Pacific Northwest last week would almost certainly not have occurred without global warming, an international team of climate researchers said Wednesday. Temperatures were so extreme — including readings of 116 degrees Fahrenheit in Portland, Ore., and a Canadian record of 121 in British Columbia — that the researchers had difficulty saying just how rare the heat wave was. But they estimated that in any given year there was only a 0.1 percent chance of such an intense heat wave occurring.

“Although it was a rare event, it would have been virtually impossible without climate change,” said Geert Jan van Oldenborgh of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, who conducted the study with 26 other scientists, part of a collaborative group called World Weather Attribution.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/climate/climate-change-heat-wave.html


It does not appear that we are directly a part of this group.
https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/about/

We're linked this way:

https://www.climateprediction.net/about/

Then if you go to the list on the left, and click People:

and move down to Dr Friederike E. L. Otto, you get a link that doesn't directly include cpdn, but which we're a part of.

OK, that is nice to know. If any of our projects relate to this, it would be a good motivation for the researchers to tell us about it.
It may not be in the same geographic area, but their work may be able to shed light on this.

That’s great that the WWA folks were able to do this so quickly!

There’s a great write up on the simulation on RealClimate.

https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/07/rapid-attribution-of-pnw-heatwave/