A Climate Review Of 1,200 Rivers
When river water gets unusually hot, it can harm aquatic ecosystems, water quality, and the production of food and sometimes energy. After years of work studying these events has been possible by overcoming “patchy” and incomplete water temperature data. With a deep learning model, researchers reconstructed daily water temperatures for 1,471 U.S. river sites from 1980 to 2022.
The findings show that these specific heat waves happen less often and are less intense than air heat waves, but last nearly twice as long. And these river heatwaves are increasing much faster than air heatwaves. These river is a key factor in global climate risk and adaptation plans.
Danger Of Hot Rivers
One thing scientists did not know up to now was Heat waves, when temperatures stay high for days, are well-known in air, and cause major societal and economic damage. Technical heat waves—when river water becomes unusually hot—have been largely ignored because rivers are often seen as cool refuges.
The paper was published in PNAS and is titled. “Riverine heat waves on the rise, outpacing air heat waves.”
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