Extreme heat waves in Europe were caused by human-induced climate change

Aug 3, 2019

London: The extreme heat waves that enveloped parts of Western Europe last month were made much more likely and intense by human-induced climate change, a study has found.

A recent report from the World Weather Attribution group has suggested that the continuous days of extreme heat that hit countries like France and Netherlands would have been a once-in-a-millennium occurrence without the climate change but was made up to 100 times more probable as a result of it. In the UK and Germany, the event is less rare (with estimated return periods of around 10-30 years in the current climate) and the likelihood is about 10 times higher (at least 3 times) due to climate change, the study added.

Though in all these countries, the temperature would have been 1.5 to 3 degrees celsius lower without climate change.

The said group has analyzed all seven heatwaves in the 21st century in Europe (2003, 2010, 2015, 2017, 2018, and June 2019), and found that each one was made more likely and more intense due to human-induced climate change.

“The July 2019 heatwave was so extreme over continental Western Europe that the observed magnitudes would have been extremely unlikely without climate change,” the report concluded. (ANI)