The 2021 western North America heat wave among the most extreme events ever recorded globally

In June 2021, western North America experienced a record-breaking heat wave outside the distribution of previously observed temperatures. While it is clear that the event was extreme, it is not obvious whether other areas in the world have also experienced events so far outside their natural variability. Using a novel assessment of heat extremes, we investigate how extreme this event was in the global context. Characterizing the relative intensity of an event as the number of standard deviations from the mean, the western North America heat wave is remarkable, coming in at over four standard deviations. Throughout the globe, where we have reliable data, only five other heat waves were found to be more extreme…

• SR
  Sight Research UK

  Awards: NE/S004661/1, NE/R009554/1, NE/S005242/1
• NE
  Natural Environment Research Council

  Awards: NE/S004661/1, NE/S005242/1, NE/S005242/1, NE/R009554/1, NE/R009554/1, NE/S017267/1