Extreme heat having extreme consequences in Death Valley and across US
Scenes like those in Death Valley could become more common unless the world acts, as Dan Rivers reports
The warning signs as you enter Death Valley are clear.
"Dangerous heat" and "heat kills" are blunt messages to visitors who come to experience the hottest place on earth.
Yet this week a man died after being overcome by the scorching temperatures of over 50 degrees Celsius.
Death Valley National Park ranger Abby Wines tells me it is sadly all too common for tourists to be killed. Often the coroner can’t definitively say the heat was the cause, but she is in little doubt.
I met a man over breakfast who’d seen someone collapse during a 15-minute walk out across the salt flats on a previous visit. The effects on the body arrive with sudden and devastating results.
I wasn’t taking any chances and was constantly sipping water as we filmed, trying to limit our exposure as much as we could.
It was like standing in front of a roaring fire. Even at night the temperature was still above 40 Celsius.
It was a ferocious assault on the senses.
The highest temperature ever recorded here was in 1913, when 57 Celsius was clocked. This has subsequently been questioned but the way temperatures are rising it seem inevitable this milestone will soon be surpassed.
This week, park rangers told me they recorded 53 Celsius.
The effect on the rising temperatures is having profound effects on the flora and fauna here. The Bristlecone Pines of the Valley are truly ancient. Some specimens have survived 4,000 years.
Yet now the changing climate is allowing bark beetles in, which have killed off many of the pines. Birds here are also struggling with reduced range and numbers. A fragile ecosystem is being drastically altered by the abrupt changes to the climate.
We met some Spanish tourists who’d come to experience the extraordinary heat of Death Valley.
They needn’t have bothered. Spain has been suffering similar temperatures to Death Valley this week. So has Italy. And parts of China.
The concurrent heat events in so many parts of the globe are a frightening and urgent warning from Mother Nature.
Unless we want the whole planet to end up like Death Valley, something has to change.
And action has to happen fast or we will all have to get used to the furnace like temperatures I felt this week.
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