Heat Domes Are a Red-Hot Warning on Climate Costs

The unprecedented heat wave that recently gripped the Pacific Northwest demonstrates a crucial fact about climate change that most people don’t seem to appreciate yet: This will not be a smooth, predictable event. In addition to new costs that can be anticipated, climate change creates enormous risks that may result in a far higher price tag to the global economy, which greatly increases the urgency of eliminating greenhouse emissions as quickly as possible.

A meteorological event known as a “heat dome” sent the temperature at Portland International Airport in Oregon soaring to a record 116°F (46.7°C) this week. Climate change is almost certainly involved, but it isn’t as simple as average temperatures rising; scientists also believe that a warming climate can shift existing atmospheric patterns in ways that make extreme heat waves like this more likely. Heat brings with it a host of other risks. Wildfires, of the kind that blasted both Portland and the entire state of California last year, are more likely now in part because of climate change drying out vegetation. Droughts are also intensifying, which threatens crops. The net effect might be to make parts of the Western U.S. unlivable -- or at least, far less attractive as destinations for workers and capital investment. If it happens, that would incur a huge economic cost. Nor is the West Coast the only area threatened by the chaos of an altered climate — river areas are in danger of flooding, any region could theoretically dry out or swelter, and disruptions to agriculture can reverberate in markets throughout the world.