How Cold Air Caused a Heatwave

From What’s Natural? Column

published in Pacifica Tribune June 26, 2019

Worst Heatwaves During the 1930s Dust Bowl Years

I was recently asked if the record June 2019 heat in the San Francisco Bay Area validated CO₂ driven climate models. Surprisingly climate scientists have now demonstrated the heat wave was largely due to an intrusion of record cold air into the Pacific Northwest. How?

Basically, the winds’ direction controls the San Francisco Bay Area’s weather. In summer, California’s inland regions heat faster than the ocean, so the winds blow inland from the cooler ocean. Those onshore winds bring cooling fog, our natural air conditioner. Later, as the sun retreats southward in the fall, the land cools faster than the ocean. Seasonal winds then reverse and blow from the cooling land out to sea. Those winds keep the fog offshore. Without fog, San Franciscans finally enjoy pleasantly warm days in September and October. In northern California those strong offshore winds are called the Diablo winds. Although Diablo winds bring welcome warmth, those winds also increase wildfire danger.

Typically, inland California heats up in June drawing in the fog. But that temporarily changed when a surge of record cold air briefly entered Washington state and then moved down into northeastern California and Nevada. Dr. Cliff Mass, a climate scientist at the University of Washington, studies the Diablo winds. On his popular weather blog,  he discussed how that intruding cold air created an unseasonal burst of Diablo winds that then kept the fog offshore. Without cooling fog, solar heating increased temperatures dramatically. According to Accuweather, San Francisco’s maximum temperature on Friday June 7^th was 67 °F, skyrocketed to a record 97 °F by Monday and then fell to 61 °F three days later as onshore winds returned. 

Such rapid temperature change is never caused by a slowly changing greenhouse effect.  Nevertheless, the media asks if rising CO₂ concentrations could have contributed to the higher temperatures or made the heatwave more likely? 

Although definitions vary, the World Meteorological Organization defines a heat wave as 5 or more consecutive days of prolonged heat in which daily maximum temperatures are 9+ °F higher than average. Assuming the rise in CO₂  concentration increased all temperatures relative to the 20^thcentury average, it is believed maximum temperatures are more likely to exceed that 9 °F threshold. But heatwaves are not caused by increasing greenhouse gases.

The science is solid that greenhouse gases can intercept escaping heat and re-direct a portion of that heat back to earth. That downward directed heat reduces how quickly the earth cools, and thus the earth warms. However, heat waves typically occur when greenhouse gas concentrations are greatly reduced.  Eighty percent or more of our greenhouse effect is caused not by CO₂, but by water vapor. Satellite data shows the dry conditions that accompany a heat wave actually reduce the greenhouse effect because drier air allows more infrared heat to escape back to space. However, like less fog, less water vapor and less clouds allow more solar heating. So despite the increase in escaping heat, increased solar heating dominates the weather and temperatures rise. 

The important contribution of dryness to heat waves helps explain why the USA experienced its worst heat waves during the 1930s Dust Bowl years (see EPA Heatwave Index above). Furthermore, the EPA’s heat wave index appears totally independent of rising CO2 concentrations.  Dryness also helps to explain why the hottest air temperature ever recorded anywhere in the world happened over a century ago in Death Valley on July 10, 1913; a time of much lower CO₂ concentrations.

To summarize, an intrusion of record cold air into the Pacific Northwest generated unseasonal Diablo winds in northern California.  Those offshore winds prevented the fog from reaching and cooling the land. In addition, because the Diablo winds are abnormally dry, solar heating of the land increased. Those combined effects caused temperatures to temporarily jump by 30 °F. 

Lastly, not only can Diablo winds cause heatwaves, Diablo winds will fan small fires into huge devastating infernos such as the one that destroyed Paradise, California. Fortunately, there were few wildfire ignitions during this heat wave. To be safe, Pacific Gas and Electric had shut off electricity to areas predicted to have high wind speeds. So Dr. Mass mused, that because colder temperatures generate the destructive Diablo winds, climate warming may have some benefits.

Jim Steele is retired director of the Sierra Nevada Field Campus, SFSU

and authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism

Contact: naturalclimatechange@earthlink.net