Last week’s heat wave won’t be the last. Here’s how Whatcom will be impacted
The weather might usually be small talk, but last weekend’s record-breaking heat wave was anything but ordinary.
Temperatures in Bellingham climbed into the upper 90s last weekend, and northern Whatcom County reached 100 degrees at noon on Monday, June 28. Although hot days are to be expected during the summer months, experts say that human-caused climate change will make heat waves like this weekend’s more frequent and severe.
“This heat wave, stunning as it is, is the type of thing scientists have been warning about,” said Simon Donner, a climatologist at the University of British Columbia. “This particular event is quite unusual not just in the breaking records, but in the length of it.”
Since the Industrial Revolution, which occurred around a century and a half ago, the planet has warmed by almost 1.2 degrees Celsius, or 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit. So while heat waves may be a relatively normal summer occurrence, they are happening in conjunction with the rise in baseline temperature occurring due to climate change, said Washington State Climatologist Nick Bond.
“It’s a tall person that puts on their elevator shoes,” Bond said. “Climate change is the elevator shoes.”
Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington drew the connection between last weekend’s heat wave and climate change in a statement on Monday. Murray is currently advocating for Congress to invest in combating climate change through President Joe Biden’s infrastructure package.
“Today will be the hottest day on record for nearly all of Washington state,” Murray said. “The climate crisis isn’t some pending existential threat, we’re dealing with it right now.”
Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington issued a similar statement supporting the inclusion of climate measures in the federal infrastructure bill, saying that “Washington state was not built for triple-digit temperatures.”
In Whatcom County, the effects of further global warming and more extreme heat events are far-ranging. Experts predict higher temperatures to impact the region’s agriculture, salmon and public health.
A changing Whatcom County
The county’s large agricultural community could face challenges as extreme heat events worsen, experts say.
Take dairy farming, for example: Whatcom County boasted 98 dairy producers in 2016, the most of any county in the region at the time, according to a USDA report. Cows, however, are sensitive to heat, with a normal body temperature of 101.5 degrees. When they overheat, they produce less milk.
The berry farms Whatcom County residents know and love could also be at risk. In his work as the state’s climatologist, Bond has heard concerns that hotter, more humid summers could make the berry crops more susceptible to pests, fungus and mold diseases.
Luckily, there was above-average snowpack in the North Cascades mountains this winter, so water availability in Whatcom County is not an urgent concern, Bond said. If this had happened after a year of below-average snowpack, the fallout of the heat wave could have been much worse.
“There would be just that much more tension between the sectors that need that water,” Bond said. “Hydropower, agriculture, the streams needed to keep salmon and trout healthy.”
The impact of a warming world on Washington’s salmon population has long been an issue of concern. Hot weather can increase water temperatures in salmon habitat, Bond explained, particularly in lower-elevation, smaller streams. Sustained exposure to warm water can stress salmon’s immune systems, cause disease and prevent adult salmon from getting to spawning grounds.
By 2040, experts project that more than 40 miles of the Nooksack River will exceed 64 degrees, the thermal tolerance for adult salmon, according to a 2020 Whatcom County summary of climate trends and projected impacts.
By 2100, the South Fork of the Nooksack River will see an average of 115 days annually when the seven-day average of daily maximum stream temperature exceeds 60.8 degrees, which is considered the threshold for protecting aquatic habitats, predicts a 2018 study by researchers at Western Washington University. The South Fork experiences higher temperatures than the Middle and North Forks of the river since it sits at a lower elevation.
A heat wave, especially one as long as last weekend’s, could set the region up for a particularly bad wildfire and smoke season as well, experts say. Vegetation gets hot and dry in this weather, said the University of British Columbia climatologist Donner, with forests becoming almost like tinderboxes. No rain is forecast for the region in the near future, and Donner is concerned about the impacts the heat wave will have on the upcoming wildfire season.
“Bellingham knows firsthand that the fire doesn’t need to be close to you for you to be affected by it,” he said.
The lowdown on high temperatures
The National Weather Service recorded a temperature of 99 degrees at Bellingham International Airport Monday — three degrees hotter than the previous all-time record of 96 set July 29, 2009.
“This is very unusual,” Mike Mcfarland, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Seattle said of the heat wave. “You wouldn’t want to expect this to occur very often.”
The heat wave was caused by what experts refer to as a heat dome, which is a large ridge of atmospheric pressure. When high pressure systems pass through an area, they suppress storms, giving way to days with clear skies and full sun.
As the air in the heat dome slowly sinks, Mcfarland said, it gets warmer. And voila, that’s why we saw such high temperatures last weekend.
Even when the sun set, extreme heat continued — climate change is actually causing greater increases in nighttime low temperatures than daytime highs in the Northwest. In Whatcom County, overnight lows were 15 to 20 degrees above seasonal norms, according to the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office Division of Emergency Management.
Hotter nights can have serious public health impacts, Bond said — if people can’t cool down and relieve “thermal stress” at night, they are more likely to suffer from heat-related illness. Particularly at risk are vulnerable individuals such as children or older people, as well as those with pre-existing health conditions.
Hundreds of people in the Pacific Northwest died in the heat wave last week, the Washington Post reported.
St. Joseph Hospital in Bellingham treated several patients for heat-related ailments last weekend, but no deaths in Whatcom County can be definitively linked to the heat, according to Dr. Gary Goldfogel, medical examiner.
Donner, the University of British Columbia climatologist, is particularly worried about how outdoor workers will fare during extreme heat events.
“There’s tons of evidence of the dangers of working in extreme heat,” he said. “I’m thinking about people in agriculture or construction and whether their employers will give them a break in heat waves like this.”
Lower-income communities are disproportionately impacted by heat waves, Bond said. Many homes in the Pacific Northwest are already poorly equipped to handle days this hot, he said, and lower-income families are even less likely to have air conditioning or the resources to cool down.
“We’ve done a lot to the atmosphere, “ Bond said. “And it is warmer.”
This story was originally published July 4, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Last week’s heat wave won’t be the last. Here’s how Whatcom will be impacted."
