Why The Hell is It Getting So Hot

The Pacific Northwest (of the USA) and the Pacific Southwest (of Canada) are breaking all time temperature records all over the map. Yesterday all time high temperature records were set in Seattle (105), Portland (114) and the entire Country of Canada at 115.

(For Brits) Seattle - 40.5, Portland 45.5, Canada 46

That is hella high. But why is this happening if Climate Change is only in a few degrees? Well the illustrator below helps to show why.

Temperatures run between very very cold (which happens infrequently) and very very hot (which happens infrequently). If you plot every temperature over the course of the year, it would follow a curve like this. Now, while the average curve barely moves as climate change occurs, the tail ends' move to encompass a new normal. Very very cold gets even less frequent. But very very hot become smore frequent and you can add the new tail of fuck-all hot into the mix.

In the old system, what we are seeing in Seattle and British Columbia are once in 10,000 year events. But in our new average curve they will just be once in a while events.

One side effect that might not obvious from this, the greater the range of the curve, the more extremes you will get. Think of Minneapolis where the summers scorch and the winters are very very cold. Versus San - 70 and sunny - Diego., that has a very very flat curve. Because its average temperature doesn't very much at all, the small climate change will reflect as a small climate change, not the crazy things happening in the Pacific Northwest right now.