As the intense heat wave in the western provinces eases its grip, a former Environment Canada research scientist says that this weather event, while unusual, was caused by natural climate variability and is comparable to heat waves that occurred in the 1920s and ’30s.
“This heat wave was exceptional, but it does not indicate any serious climate change issue,” Madhav Khandekar told The Epoch Times. “I think it is part of natural climate variability that we Canadians seem to forget.”
At the height of the heat wave, the village of Lytton in B.C. set a Canadian record of 49.6 degrees Celsius on June 29. On July 2, B.C.’s chief coroner Lisa Lapointe said 719 sudden and unexpected deaths have been reported over a seven-day period, noting that the severe weather was a significant contributing factor.
Seattle, Portland, and some other U.S. cities also broke heat records, with temperatures in some places reaching above 46 Celsius.
While some environmentalists and climate scientists claim that human-caused climate change is behind such extreme weather events, Khandekar, an extreme weather expert, doesn’t agree.
“Are these due to global warming or what’s called human CO2 emissions? The answer is no,” he said.
“For example, during the 1930s, often known as the ‘dust bowl’ years of North America, there were serious heat waves, and the highest temperature in Canada was recorded in a small town in Saskatchewan in July 1937: the temperature of 45 degrees [Celsius],” he said. – READ MORE
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