A case for the ‘wave 7’ hypothesis as wildfires spike and super-hot spells lengthen

This is all quite new science, and still open to challenge. But over the past two decades the same pattern of seven stalled peaks and lows over the same regions–‘wave-7’–has lasted seven times for more than two weeks. Before 2000, it never happened.

Two wildfires burn in close proximity on June 30 in B.C., the Long Loch wildfire and Derrickson Lake wildfire. Record summer temperatures like this were foreseen as a consequence of global warming, but they were not predicted to arrive for another decade or so, writes Gwynne Dyer. Photograph courtesy B.C. Wildfire Service’s Twitter

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

July 6, 2021

LONDON, U.K.—First the ‘heat dome’, with temperatures in the mid-to-high forties Celsius in many parts of western North America for up to a week (49.6° C in Lytton, B.C.). Then, when the forests were tinder-dry, came the wildfires (which wiped Lytton out). From northern California to northern...

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