A recent article from the climate desk at Philadelphia’s WHYY News titled “‘Fingerprint of climate change’: April heat wave could break a record in Philadelphia,” claims that warm temperatures in the Mid-Atlantic this week are evidence of long term global warming. This is false. While it is true that average, long term global temperatures have modestly increased since the Industrial Revolution, heatwaves like those forecasted for the East coast are not evidence of any emergency, and also are not becoming more frequent or severe.
A high-pressure ridge in the Atlantic Ocean is causing warmer air to sweep up the Southeastern United States and Mid-Atlantic, giving the region a springtime heatwave. That’s a short-term meteorological event, which is normally referred to as weather, not a long-term change in the average temperature and prevailing conditions for a region, which is climate.
