Additional Coverage:
Southwest Sizzles in Unprecedented March Heat, Experts Point to Climate Change
WASHINGTON D.C. – A dangerous and record-shattering heat wave has gripped the U.S. Southwest this March, a phenomenon experts are calling a stark manifestation of a warming planet. This isn’t just another weather anomaly; it’s the latest example of extreme weather events occurring with increasing frequency and intensity, pushing boundaries once thought impossible.
While the Southwest is no stranger to scorching temperatures, the timing of this heat wave-months ahead of schedule-is particularly alarming. On Thursday, the Arizona desert registered a staggering 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius), obliterating the highest March temperature ever recorded in the U.S.
“This is what climate change looks like in real time: extremes pushing beyond the bounds we once thought possible,” stated Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria. “What used to be unprecedented events are now recurring features of a warming world.”
A rapid analysis released Friday by World Weather Attribution, an international consortium of scientists, concluded that this March heat wave would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused climate change. More than a dozen scientists, meteorologists, and disaster experts consulted by The Associated Press are classifying this event as “ultra-extreme,” alongside other devastating occurrences like the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave and the 2022 Pakistan floods.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Extremes Index, the area of the U.S. impacted by extreme weather has doubled in the past five years compared to two decades ago. An AP analysis of NOAA records further reveals that the United States is breaking 77% more hot weather records now than in the 1970s and 19% more than the 2010s. The financial toll is also escalating, with the number and inflation-adjusted cost of billion-dollar weather disasters in recent years doubling from a decade ago and nearly quadrupling from 30 years prior.
Struggling to Keep Pace with Escalating Extremes
“It’s really hard to even keep up with how extreme our extremes are becoming,” commented Bernadette Woods Placky, Chief Meteorologist at Climate Central. “It’s changing our risk, it’s changing our relationship with weather, it’s putting more people in risky situations and at times we’re not used to. So yes, we are pushing extremes to new levels across all different types of weather.”
For government officials tasked with disaster management, this trend presents a formidable challenge. Craig Fugate, who led the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) until 2017, observed a clear increase in extreme events during his tenure.
“We were operating outside the historical playbook more and more. Flood maps, surge models, heat records – events kept showing up outside the envelope we built systems around.
That’s just what we saw,” Fugate shared via email. He added, “We built communities on about 100 years of past weather and assumed that was a good guide going forward.
That assumption is starting to break. And the clearest signal isn’t the science debate.
It’s insurers walking away.”
Climate Change: The “Virtually Impossible” Factor
The flash analysis by World Weather Attribution, which compared expected temperatures this week to historical March data since 1900 and computer models of a climate-changed world, concluded that “events as warm as in March 2026 would have been virtually impossible without human-induced climate change.” This warming, primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels, added an estimated 4.7 to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (2.6 to 4 degrees Celsius) to the observed temperatures.
Clair Barnes, an attribution scientist at Imperial College of London and co-author of the report, emphasized, “What we can very confidently say is that human-caused warming has increased the temperatures that we’re seeing as a result of this heat dome, and it’s going to be pushing those temperatures from what would have been very uncomfortable into potentially dangerous.”
A Litany of Extreme Weather Events
Stanford University climate scientist Chris Field categorized the Southwest heat wave as a “giant event,” with temperatures soaring up to 30 degrees Fahrenheit (16.7 degrees Celsius) above normal. He cited several other significant events in the past six years, including a 2020 Siberia heat wave, the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave where British Columbia was hotter than Death Valley, and widespread heat across North America, China, and Europe in 2022.
The list of extreme weather influenced by climate change extends beyond just heat, encompassing deadly hurricanes, droughts, and torrential downpours. Examples include devastating floods in West Africa in 2022 and 2024, Iran’s ongoing six-year drought, and Typhoon Haiyan, which ravaged the Philippines in 2013. Superstorm Sandy in 2012, which flooded New York City, covered an area nearly one-fifth the size of the contiguous United States with tropical storm-force winds.
Wildfires, exacerbated by heat and drought, also feature prominently. The 2025 Palisades and Eaton wildfires, for instance, were the costliest weather disaster in the United States last year.
“This is due to climate change, that we see more extreme events, and more intense ones and have so many records being broken,” affirmed Friederike Otto, an Imperial College of London climate scientist and coordinator for World Weather Attribution.