Heat Waves and Wildfires

I gave a presentation in my Earth Guardians club about heat waves and wildfires. These events are increasing as global warming ramps up, and they cause serious problems around the world.

Heat Waves and Wildfires presentation

In the presentation, it mentions that heat waves can be caused by a high-pressure system. This is a brief summary of how high-pressure systems cause heat waves: 

The Earth absorbs heat from the sun, and then the ground warms the surrounding air. Therefore, the atmosphere is warmer closer to the earth. Normally, air cycles around the globe, and warm air will rise above cold air because it is less dense. As the warm air rises, it will continually cool until the air mass starts to descend again. Water vapor in the warm air will also rise until the air cools and the water condenses into clouds. However, high-pressure systems act like a ceiling that forces warm air downwards. This means that the air mass just keeps getting hotter and hotter because it is trapped near the earth, its source of heat, which then leads to a heat wave. There is also very little to no rain during a heat wave because all the water vapor is trapped near the earth with the warm air, so the vapor cannot cool down enough to condense into clouds.

All living organisms have a range of climate conditions they can tolerate, so heat waves can cause illness or death for many living things, including humans.