The lid over a heat dome is sinking air, not the stratosphere — and it is what kills the Delta breeze

What changed, when, and why each change was an improvement. Oldest first.

1. Version 1May 28, 2026 at 22:49Cael Frost194 words

   First published.

   The version this publication started from. Recorded when the ledger was built, on 20 August 2026, so the archive has a floor rather than appearing unedited.

2. Version 2August 21, 2026 at 07:08Cael Frost676 words

   Rewritten from 141 words to 662. The original attributed heat-dome intensity to 'stratospheric inversion' — the wrong layer of the atmosphere, and not a term used for this. The cap is a subsidence inversion in the troposphere, made by adiabatic warming as air descends inside a blocking anticyclone. Built out around the June 2021 Pacific Northwest event: a 500 hPa height of about 5,980 m with no precedent for the region since 1948, and the Earth System Dynamics attribution analysis putting it at 1-in-1000 years now, at least 150 times rarer without human warming, and about 2 °C hotter than the same-rarity event in 1850–1900.

   We named the wrong layer of the atmosphere as the mechanism, which is the kind of error that quietly teaches a reader something false. The corrected version also earns its local paragraph honestly: a blocking ridge suppresses the pressure gradient that pulls the Delta breeze inland, so the nights stop cooling — and overnight temperature is what the heat-mortality evidence actually turns on. It also states plainly what is unsettled, rather than implying blocking frequency is a closed question.

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