For the last few days I have been reading the news as the northwestern United States has experienced a strong heat wave that has broken all records in its major cities, including Seattle and Portland.

There are even reports that part of the infrastructure of those cities is literally melting due to the heat wave. The PDX airport has kept records of the highest and lowest temperatures every day since 1938 (see charts above), and looking at a graph of this data, it is clear that the temperatures of the last few days are extraordinary for that region of the country.

I have been saying it for a while on this blog: global warming is not a joke!