Weatherbox: Part II
Chatterbox slightly mangled in last week's "
Weatherbox" item the meaning of the "hottest-ever" weather data available
from NOAA. Chatterbox, wanting to get people to quit whining about the
heat wave, used the data to point out that it's been a lot hotter, which it
has. The data itself (including the hottest-ever temperature recorded
officially--136 degrees Farenheit in El Azizia, Libya on Sept. 13, 1922--and
the hottest-ever temperature recorded officially in the U.S.--134 degrees in
Death Valley, Calif., on July 10, 1913) were correct. But Chatterbox, his mind
clearly addled by the heat (it's much cooler now) misinterpreted the
rankings below "hottest-ever" of both worldwide temperatures and U.S.
temperatures. Chatterbox thanks the many readers who wrote in to inform him of
his error.
The NOAA data show the hottest days ever recorded on various continents, in
declining order. Therefore, it's rash to conclude (as Chatterbox did) that the
second-hottest temperature in known human history was the 134 degrees
recorded in Death Valley--cited by NOAA as the hottest-ever temperature in
North America, and as a temperature hotter than any other recorded by NOAA for
any continent that isn't Africa. More likely, the second-hottest day in
known human history probably occurred somewhere in Africa, where somebody
probably measured a temperature of 135 degrees Farenheit. But this would
not be included on the NOAA chart because Africa's record is the
136 degrees figure for El Azizia, Libya, in 1922. Chatterbox's rankings
for the U.S. were similarly skewed, since NOAA's chart listed all-time highs for individual states; hence the
second-hottest day in the United States was probably not June 29,
1994, when it hit 128 degrees in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., and 125 degrees
Fahrenheit in Laughlin, Nev. Rather, the second-hottest day probably
occurred in the same location as the hottest day, i.e., Death Valley,
Calif., which is really, really hot. Indeed, a guy named Dinesh Desai
claims to have recorded a temperature of 129
degrees while walking across Death Valley in July 1998. (Chatterbox's
rankings for third hottest, fourth hottest, etc., are, of course, similarly
botched.)
A reader e-mailed Chatterbox some intriguing evidence that the temperature
may have lately spiked past El Azizia, Libya's, 1922 world record of 136
degrees Farenheit--though not, of course, anywhere near these shores. Sgt.
Scott Comiskey of the U.S. Army, who since April has been stationed in Kuwait,
claims that it hit 142 degrees one day out on the live fire range. "I
fought in the Gulf War," writes Comiskey, "and I can tell you this is the worst
heat I have ever felt." Members of his task force were given T-shirts that say
"142" in order to commemorate the event. This is not an officially sanctioned
figure, but Chatterbox trusts the U.S. Army to handle a thermometer.
None of these qualifications negates Chatterbox's message that it can get a
lot hotter than it was last week in much of the U.S. Certainly Chatterbox means
no disrespect to the (mostly elderly) people who died in the recent U.S. heat
wave. But Chatterbox finds himself wondering why this heat wave, which
stretched across the Midwest, the South, and the East, killed so many people in
Chicago , a city in a relatively northern latitude that is reputed to be
Windy and situated on a very big lake. (By now it's cooled down to 83 degrees
at Chicago's Midway Airport, according to the Chicago Tribune's weather Web page.
Click here for links to the Tribune's coverage of the heat
wave.) According to the Tribune , Chicago had about 2.7 heat deaths per
100,000 people, "a higher rate of these fatalities than Southern cities such as
Atlanta and Miami," which tend to be hotter.
One reason, apparently, is that Chicago doesn't have enough air conditioners
for low-income people. Quoth the Tribune :
Air conditioning is not standard equipment in low-income housing here,
said Steve Forman, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the
University of Illinois at Chicago ... Only four of the 58 Chicago Housing
Authority buildings for senior citizens have air conditioning in every room,
according to CHA spokeswoman Karen Bates. CHA director Phil Jackson and Mayor
Richard M. Daley have made it a goal to increase the number of units that
provide residents with air conditioning, said Daley's press secretary,
Jacquelyn Heard.
Interestingly, the city's deaths and power outages came "despite a citywide
emergency plan" that was implemented after an even worse heat wave in 1995, and
despite the fact that forecasts "accurately predicted record-scraping
temperatures" (this again, according to the Tribune ). However, Cook County's heat-wave death
toll--70 people since July 19 (out of about 185 nationwide)--isn't as bad as in
1995. The Tribune attributes this to the emergency plan, which
had police ferrying about 1,200 people without air conditioning or fans to
"cooling centers."
Still, Chatterbox doesn't remember hearing before a few years ago about
Chicago's unusual number of heat-related deaths. Chatterbox phoned Eric
Klinenberg, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Berkeley, who's writing a book
about the 1995 Chicago heat wave, to dig deeper. Klinenberg says the phenomenon
is partly related to the recent decline of Chicago's industrial base. As
sociologist William Julius Wilson points out in When Work Disappears , this decline has led to a lot of
black migration out of Chicago. But when that happens, Klinenberg says, a lot
of old folks stay put, and are therefore cut off from family support networks.
Much the same is happening with white workers, Klinenberg says. As it happens,
the heat-related deaths are concentrated among the white and black
populations--and largely bypassing the city's sizable Latino population. That's
mainly because "Latinos in Chicago are in a different migration cycle. Their
numbers in the city have been increasing. ... They're newer arrivals and
they're continuing to come in." In other words, the young Latino folks are
situated near the old Latino folks, and can help them escape the heat. (To read
Klinenberg's article, "Autopsie d'un été meurtrier à Chicago," in Le Monde
Diplomatique, click here. Warning: As the title suggests, it's in French.)
