The hottest place on Earth is cracking from the stress of extreme heat
This week, an intense heat dome is trapping hot air over much of the Western United States, sending temperatures up to 30 degrees hotter than normal for early June. Yesterday, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Las Vegas were pushing into the triple digits and nighttime temperatures this week haven’t offered much relief.
Nine out of 10 of Death Valley’s hottest summers have been in the past ten years. Death Valley, California, already the hottest place on the planet, is now in the middle of the heat dome, making it an interesting place to look at the implications of such high temperatures so early in the year.
I spoke with Abby Wines, a spokesperson from Death Valley National Park, on the peak of the heat dome this Thursday. As we spoke on Thursday morning, the mercury on the park’s temperature gauge was climbing — on its way to hitting 121 degrees, putting this week in contention for the hottest in recorded history and tying the hottest temperature for this time of the year. This is only the start of what’s shaping up to be an extremely hot summer.
These temperatures are alarming and harmful. Last year’s excessive heat led to more heat-related deaths than any year on record. According to an AP analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, the death certificates of more than 2,300 people who died in the United States last summer mention the effects of excessive heat, the highest number in 45 years of records.
