The Deadly heat wave thread

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On Monday, as much of the country stewed in bubbling heat, a boiling milestone was hit — a buoy in Florida registered a jaw-dropping 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit water temperature.

This was on the heels of the same buoy in Manatee Bay registering 100.2 degrees on Sunday. For perspective, the average hot tub temperature is 100-102 degrees F.

While the readings would've been considered a possible outlier or sensor error, surrounding buoys recorded similarly high temperatures, with 99.3 F at Murray Key and 98.4 F at Johnson Key.

Another reason why these water temperature readings are being taken seriously is the fact that experts have been tracking the exceptionally warm water temperature readings that have ranged from 92-97 degrees since early July.

For the majority of the month, an unusual weather pattern for the summer months for the region has been the driving factor. That pattern has featured a stagnant set-up fueled by a strong area of high pressure that has led to days of above average, and in many cases, record-setting air temperatures.

The pattern has also led to weaker than average trade winds. Trade winds usually produce southeast winds and a sea breeze for south Florida, which helps to keep the sea surface temperatures in check. Instead, winds have been out of the west and weak, allowing sea surface temperatures to heat up.

Still, despite a month of record-setting water temperatures already in the history books, Sunday and Monday's 100-degree water temperature reading stunned experts.

Factors that could have played a role in spiking the water temperature above 100 degrees include:

Air temperatures in the mid-to-upper 90s.

Weak winds across the region of less than 10 mph.

Strong sunlight hitting shallow water, which heats up faster than deep water.

Silty water leading to darker color, causing more absorption of sunlight and additional heating. Think of clear water vs. murky water as being similar to cement vs. asphalt. The darker the color, the more absorption and hotter the temperatures.

The water temperatures recorded Sunday and Monday would challenge the record for hottest sea surface temperature in the world. While official world water temperature records aren't kept, a 99.7 degree temperature recorded in Kuwait Bay is considered the world record at this time. Due to factors like proximity to land and the silty nature of the water, the temperatures recorded off Florida would have to go through an extensive verification process.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), ocean warming since 1991 doubles the size of the marine heat wave forecasted for September 2023.

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.

Here in the UK we have had fires. But not like recent years and here is why.
In the past it was tradition in certain colder months for hillsides with gorse or bracken to be set alight in controlled fires. This had been done for thousands of years, and no one really knew who started it. In the last two decades, to "Save the enviroment", this controlled burning was halted, and the first notable difference was that certain plants and flowers became on the endangered list because they only grew in an enviroment after a fire or where land had been cleared, with one or two plants needing their seeds to be burnt before they germinate.
Another rather "Odd" thing happened aftef the ban on controlled burning. When we had a heatwave and had a fire (Was going to happen somewhere), it became an out of control fire, where in the past, it was rare to have a fire out of control as forestries had built infire breaks (Now allowed to grow to "Save the enviroment") and these fires spread far further than they ever did. Why? Dry tinder from plants without fire breaks to prevent fires from spreading.
The people of long ago knew what they were doing and why they did it. The results of saving the enviroment = more fires than the past right in the hot summers, which means more long term harm than if they left things alone and let thefarmers and land owners carry on like they had done for years.

Big fires have always happened and been a risk. The issue today is that we are not making the land safe, and if we do, modern day methods of wood chipping just spread ready made fuel on the ground!

In his first tweet about this summer’s California wildfires, President Trump blamed environmental laws for making the blazes worse by preventing firefighters from using a “massive amount of readily available water.”

He said it’s “being diverted into the Pacific Ocean.”

The problem with that claim? The state’s firefighting agency said it’s had no complications accessing water, while fire experts said the state’s hot, dry and windy conditions are to blame for the infernos, not any water policy.

Keith Gilless is a UC Berkeley professor of forest economics and chairman of the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection.

He said he believes Trump is conflating two very different issues. There’s long been a conflict between farmers and environmental groups over how much water should go to crops versus rivers and lakes. But that fight hasn’t had any effect on firefighting.

“I think there’s some real confusion in the tweet,” Gilless said. “The issues over the allocation of water between environmental and agricultural interests have nothing to do with firefighting. And I’m not aware of any situation in which those conflicts have restricted the availability of water for firefighting purposes.”
Heat, dry conditions blamed

Gilless said the reason California’s wildfires are so destructive this year is the state’s “high heat, low relative humidity, high wind speeds and high fuel loading.”

He said climate change is making these conditions more frequent.

“California is going through a really heartbreaking fire season right now,” he added. “Environmental laws about water have nothing to do with it from my perspective.”

Gilless said Trump’s language about water “being diverted into the Pacific Ocean,” doesn’t make sense, as water naturally flows to the ocean. The argument about how much water should be captured before it gets to the ocean, again, is part of a different, unrelated debate.

The second portion of Trump’s tweet, that California “Must also tree clear to stop fire spreading!”, is also confusing. Forestry experts say thinning trees is a well-established practice that can reduce the severity of fires. But clearing trees is more commonly associated with commercial logging practices, not fire management.

Would clearing brush be an option?

Putting a near complete halt on pumping CO2 into the atmosphere as well as redirecting ALL monies and resources wasted by the 1% and its attached military "security" power towards helping the People navigate the coming climate horrors is our ONLY option.