Hotter summers could be a part of Washington’s future

As relentless heat continues to pulverize Washington, the conversation has evolved from when will it end to what if it never does?

Are unbroken weeks of sweltering weather becoming the norm rather than the exception?

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For the eighth consecutive day on Thursday, the temperature was at least 95 degrees in the District.

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The answer to the first question is simple: Yes, it will end. Probably by Monday.

The answer to the second, however, is a little more complicated.

Call it a qualified yes.

“Trying to wrap an analysis around it in real time is like trying to diagnose a car wreck as the cars are still spinning,” said Deke Arndt, chief of climate monitoring at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. “But we had record heat for the summer season on the Eastern Seaboard in 2010. We had not just record heat, but all-time record heat, in the summer season in 2011. And then you throw that on top of this [mild] winter and spring and the year to date so far, it’s very consistent with what we’d expect in a warming world.”

Nothing dreadfully dramatic is taking place — the seasons are not about to give way to an endless summer.

Heat-trapping greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere may be contributing to unusually hot and long heat waves — the kind of events climate scientists have long warned will become more common. Many anticipate a steady trend of ever-hotter average temperatures as human activity generates more and more carbon pollution.

To some, the numbers recorded this month and in recent years fit together to suggest a balmy future.

“We had a warm winter, a cold spring and now a real hot summer,” said Jessica Miller, 21, a visitor from Ohio, as she sat on a bench beneath the trees in Lafayette Square. “I think the overall weather patterns are changing.”

Another visitor, who sat nearby just across from the White House, shared a similar view.

“I think it’s a natural changing of the Earth’s average temperatures,” said Joe Kaufman, a Pennsylvanian who had just walked over from Georgetown.

Arndt said he expects data for the first half of this year will show that it was the warmest six months on record. Experts predict that average temperatures will rise by 3 to 5 degrees by mid-century and by 6 to 10 degrees by the end of the century.

If that worst prediction comes true, 98 degrees will become the new normal at this time of year in Washington 88 years from now.

Will every passing year till then break records?

“Not so much record-breaking every year,” Arndt said. “But we’ll break records on the warm end more often than on the cold end, that’s for sure. As we continue to warm, we will be flirting with warm records much more than with cold records, and that’s what’s played out over much of the last few years.”

If the present is our future, it may be sizzling. The current heat wave has had eight consecutive days of 95-degree weather. The temperature may reach 106 on Saturday, and the first break will come Monday, when a few days of more seasonable highs in the upper 80s are expected.

The hot streak began June 28 and peaked the next day with a 104-degree record-breaker, the hottest temperature ever recorded here in June. That broke a record of 102 set in 1874 and matched in June 2011.