Scientific Study Blames Heatwaves In US And Europe On Climate Change
The heatwaves battering Europe and the us in July would have been “virtually impossible” without human-induced climate change, according to a scientific study.
Global warming from burning fossil fuels also made the heatwave affecting parts of china 50 times more likely.
According to one study, more than 61,000 people were estimated to have died from heat-related causes during last year’s heatwaves in Europe.
Climate scientists say decades of humans pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere are causing global temperatures to rise.
Scientists in the U.K, U.S. and Netherlands in the world weather attribution group studied the recent heatwaves to identify the fingerprint of climate change.
The North American heatwave was 2°Celsius hotter and the heatwave in china was 1°Celsius hotter because of climate change, the scientists concluded.
The world has warmed 1.1celsius compared to the per-industrial period before humans began burning fossil fuels.
Global warming has increased the likelihood of extreme temperatures so significantly that heat waves as powerful as the ones setting records in places like Phoenix,
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Catalonia and in China’s Xinjiang region this July could be expected once every 15 years in the U.S., once every 10 in southern Europe and once every five in China, the research found.
“This is not a surprise. This is absolutely not a surprise in terms of the temperatures, the weather events that we are seeing,” Otto said at a news conference. “In the past, these events would have been extremely rare.”
The analysis provides another example of how shifts in global average temperatures can create conditions for new, harmful extremes.
The scientists warned that the extremes observed this year are expected to worsen as humans continue to emit heat-trapping gasses and rely so heavily on fossil fuels.
“This is not the new normal, as long as we keep burning fossil fuels. As long as we keep burning fossil fuels, we will see more and more of these extremes,” Otto said.
Six climate scientists contributed to the recent study. It evaluated an 18-day stretch of high temperatures across the U.S.
Southwest and northern Mexico, a seven-day stretch of high temperatures in Europe and a 14-day stretch of maximum measures in China’s lowland regions.
