In Fresno, the morgue is full of victims from a California heat wave. A combination of heat and power outages killed a dozen people in Missouri. And in parts of Europe, temperatures are hotter than in 2003 when a heat wave killed 35,000 people. Get used to it. –For the next week, much of the nation should expect more ”extreme heat,” the National Weather Service predicts. –In the month of August, most of the United States will see ”above normal temperatures,” forecasters say. –For the long-term future, the world will see more and worse killer heat waves because of global warming, scientists say. The July burst of killer heat waves around the world can’t be specifically blamed on global warming. And they aren’t the worst ever — they still can’t quite hold a melting candle to the scorching heat of America’s 1930s Dust Bowl. But the trend is pointed in that direction, experts say. Heat waves and global warming ”are very strongly” connected, said Kevin Trenberth, climate analysis branch chief at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. The immediate cause of the California heat wave — and other heat waves — […]

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