Monster Heat Wave Is Scorching Parts Of The U.S., President Obama Warns Americans To Stay Safe

All told, about 200 million Americans can expect temperatures of 90 degrees or higher in the coming days. Approximately 130 million can expect heat indices of 100 degrees or higher.

AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Elliot Abrams said that hot weather in July is to be expected, but not like this.

Hot weather is no stranger to July, but 100-degree Fahrenheit heat in July has been relatively uncommon from Chicago to New York City so far this century.

And triple-digit temperatures aren’t just an inconvenience — they can be (and already have been) deadly. This week in St. Louis, an elderly woman whose air conditioner was malfunctioning died from the excessive heat, marking the second heat-related fatality in St. Louis this summer.

So is climate change to blame for the current heat wave? 2016 is certainly on track to be the hottest year on record, and the current heat wave isn’t going to change that. But it’s hard to say conclusively if any one weather event is due to climate change, as weather events are short-term phenomena lasting a few days or few months, whereas climate change refers to a long-term trend lasting years, decades, and even centuries
 

But there is precedent for blaming a deadly heat wave on climate change. Back in 2003, according to Pacific Standard, a deadly heat wave claimed 70,000 lives in Europe — the worst heat wave in Europe since the 16th century. And scientists concluded that climate change did, indeed, play a role in those deaths.

We are now at the stage where we can identify the cost to our health of man-made global warming