This week, an intense heat dome is trapping hot air across much of the western United States, making temperatures 30 degrees warmer than normal for early June. Yesterday, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas pushed into the triple digits, and nighttime temperatures haven’t offered much relief this week.
These conditions are extreme, but nowhere are they more extreme than in Death Valley.
Death Valley has had nine of the 10 warmest summers in the last 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 see the effects of such high temperatures early in the year.
I spoke with Death Valley National Park spokeswoman Abby Wine, atop the heat dome this Thursday. As we spoke Thursday morning, the mercury on the park’s temperature gauge had risen — on track to hit 121 degrees, putting this week in contention for the hottest in recorded history and tied for the warmest temperature for this time of year. This is just the beginning of what is shaping up to be a very hot summer.
This temperature is alarming and harmful. Last year’s extreme heat led to more heat-related deaths than any year on record. According to An AP analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dataMore than 2,300 people who died in the U.S. last summer cited the effects of excessive heat on their death certificates, the highest number in a 45-year record.
Many of the plants and animals that live in Death Valley are living on the edge of survival under current conditions, and climate change is projected to make this part of the country hotter and drier. And yet a slight increase in temperature or a change in precipitation patterns has the potential to push some of Death Valley’s plants and animals into threat or even extinction.
When Wines and I spoke, he talked about some of the cracks that are emerging in a place that is used to such extreme temperatures. Even for the warmest places on Earth, there is a threshold for thermal adaptation.
But perhaps even more frightening is what it could mean for the rest of us.
This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Page Vega
Death Valley is very well adapted to this kind of heat — 120 degrees Fahrenheit is not such a big deal for this place. But can you tell me what it’s like there now, and why such high temperatures are significant at this time of year?
Abby Wines
Yesterday reached 118 and today is forecast for 121, which is tied for the record. So it’s really, really hot. Yesterday, I was making a series of short videos with a colleague. It was morning and maybe 110 when we were filming, and we had a solar umbrella to protect the camera and an ice pack to hold it when we weren’t actively recording. I was filming these really short segments of, you know, a minute or so, and it was a challenge to get my words out fast enough before the camera shut down because of the heat. Camera’s poor little delicate flower. Right now it’s good to do it there. It’s too hot for the camera.
Page Vega
You say it went up to 118 yesterday. Today is forecast for 121. Can you put those numbers in context?
Abby Wines
It’s warmer than normal for this time of year, but it’s not the first time we’ve reached this temperature range. Yesterday’s record was 122; We reached 118. Today’s forecast is 121. If we get to 121 it will tie the date record, so we’re right there.
An amazing thing
Death Valley holds the world record for the hottest temperature on the planet, but controversy surrounds its claim to fame. The record was set on July 10, 1913, when the temperature hit 134 degrees Fahrenheit. But as Vox reports, past measurements may not be as reliable as modern ones, and weather historian Christopher Burt has argued that the measurements were likely an error. If so, the world’s actual warmest temperature on record may be Happened last year –Also in Death Valley, but Wines says that “record” deserves a major qualification: “We have a thermometer that’s in front of the Furnace Creek Visitor Center. It’s not connected to the official thermometer and actually gets 2 degrees warmer than it should. So, it’s a little embarrassing. It’s totally Not correct.” Instagram bait, basically.The National Weather Service and the World Meteorological Association currently accept 134°F as the hottest naturally occurring temperature on Earth.
Page Vega
Death Valley is home to many amazing wildlife and plant life that have adopted some interesting adaptations to cope with such an environment. Can you talk about some local wildlife celebrities and their adaptations and survival strategies?
Abby Wines
One of the most common species here is called the zebra-tailed lizard. It is a very light-colored lizard, which is good for reflecting the sun’s rays as much as possible. Another animal that is extremely well adapted to the desert is called the kangaroo rat. I wish it wasn’t called a mouse, because it’s actually like a cute little mouse, and it walks around on its hind legs with a long tail. It survives by burrowing underground during the day. It’s out of the sun, out of the heat, and then it’s more active at night, especially in the summer. Road runners and coyotes also do very well in the heat.
Page Vega
The kinds of adaptations that animals can develop in places like Death Valley are not survival strategies that humans can adapt to. How do you keep people safe? Can you comment on how you and the staff at Death Valley National Park think about heat exposure for people, employees and visitors?
Abby Wines
The top priority is to help people avoid the heat. People can have this mentality, that they can throw it away, or we can see someone else doing something in the heat, and think, “If they can do it, surely I can do it. I’m fit, I’m young”—whatever their particular reason for thinking that. But this can be a really dangerous mindset.
We are trying to help people make better choices by informing them about the consequences if things go wrong.
If it’s over 120 degrees outside, the helicopter won’t come. If a visitor needs rescue, we cannot put our staff in danger to help that person and therefore a rescue may not always be possible. It’s a tough choice every time. Are we putting our own employees at risk to rescue that person?
I think this is such a shocking piece of information for most people. But if it is more than 120 degrees outside, the helicopter will not come. Warm air does not have as much lift as cold air. So a helicopter gets less lift in extreme temperatures. Except for people saying, “Oh, it’s hot out there.”
Page Vega
That’s pretty harsh. In temperatures like that, knowing you’re on your own if something happens, I think that can be pretty scary. How many visitors do you expect to the park in the coming months and throughout the summer?
Abby Wines
We’re getting more than you think. About 300,000 people usually come in the summer — but the key thing to understand is that many people who come in the summer months are just passing through. Most of our summer visitors are people from other countries. So Death Valley isn’t the only reason they’re coming to the US. They’re traveling in the western US, and in the summer, when Tioga Pass is open, the road over the mountain to Yosemite National Park, that means Death Valley is on a direct route between Las Vegas and Yosemite, and so it’s a reasonable extra thing for us to see along the way. .
Page Vega
And during those hot months, people often drive around comfortably in their air-conditioned cars.
Abby Wines
Yes, and well, you’ll sometimes hear people make fun of people who go to the park this way, which is basically what they see from the windshield. But this is the safest way to see Death Valley in summer. This place is beautiful and it’s amazing, and looking at it in the summer you can really marvel at the fact that a lizard can live here, or there’s a bush – anything can live here. We don’t want to discourage summer visits, but we want people to be smart about it.
Page Vega
Climate change is expected to make Death Valley hotter and drier in the future. Is there a point where it’s too hot, even for the hottest place on Earth? Is there a level of that kind of acclimation?
Abby Wines
Just as it’s different for every human, there’s a slightly different threshold for every animal and plant life, and we don’t know what it is. Take the Devil’s Hole Pupfish, for example. These tiny fish live in water that averages about 93 degrees, the warmest of any fish. Maybe they’ll be okay at 94, maybe they’ll be okay at 97, maybe they’ll be okay. 140. But I’m pretty sure they won’t be right at 212. We don’t know what their threshold is and we certainly aren’t experimenting on them to find out.
Page Vega
Can you talk about whether there is any evidence of heat stress on the landscape within these heat-acclimated ecosystems?
Abby Wines
There is some compelling research on this topic. More than a century ago, A study conducted by the University of California, Berkeley Multiple landscapes have been surveyed across California. The work provided a baseline – a very detailed study within Death Valley – of exactly which animals they found at what elevation, which sites they sampled to look at animal body size, and the abundance of animals at each of those sites. And then a few years ago, scientists went back Many of those spots and parts of the study have been replicated What they found in Death Valley was that some of the wildlife, animals like kangaroo rats, seemed to be fine. But other animals aren’t doing so well. The study found that Death Valley’s bird species have seen a 30 percent decline in abundance and range, so there are fewer of them in fewer parts of the park than 100 years ago.
Another bit of evidence that is of real concern relates to the bristlecone pine tree. They are one of the oldest living things on the planet – they can reach thousands of years old – and they live in the high desert mountains throughout the Great Basin region, including Death Valley National Park.
The population is now being attacked by bark beetles, and it’s pretty weird. Part of how and why bristlecones live so long is because they are very resistant to pests like bark beetles. The species of bark beetle that is currently attacking Death Valley’s bristlecone pines is native — so it has always lived in Death Valley, but it has never attacked bristlecones before. Warmer climates are changing that.
Page Vega
What are the broader implications of this change?
Abby Wines
Another way to think about this is that, yes, climate change will affect Death Valley and life here will suffer. It’s not good.
But even worse is the possibility of the conditions we’re used to seeing recurring in places in Death Valley. nearby Valley of Death. As Death Valley is now, so may the surrounding desert regions if climate change takes its course.
So, consider Las Vegas or Palm Springs – these areas can become more like Death Valley, and, well, I like Death Valley, but I don’t think the extreme heat we have here is a landscape anyone really wants across the region.
