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Climate change fingerprints were all over Europe's latest heat wave, study finds
(Inside Climate News, 4 Jul 2019) The record heat didn't just hit Europe. Globally, it was the hottest June on record, Greenland saw excessive melting, and wildfires lit up the Arctic.
The extreme heat wave that gripped Europe in late June and sent temperatures soaring to 114 degrees Fahrenheit was made at least five times more likely by global warming, scientists with the World Weather Attribution group said Tuesday.
It was a quick and unambiguous finding, a judgment that in past times would have been harder to declare without heavy hedging.
The week of heat threatened vulnerable older people, damaged roads and railroad tracks and forced a rescheduling of national school exams in France. The Swiss meteorological service called it one of the most intense heat waves in that country's history and said the heat had a clear climate change signal.
"The normally hottest part of the summer is yet to come," World Weather Attribution's Geert Jan van Oldenborgh warned on Twitter.
The World Weather Attribution scientists zoomed in on France while the heat wave was still being felt to assess the impact of global warming.
Using climate models and historical temperature records, they compared heat waves with and without the effects of human-caused greenhouse gases. They calculated that global warming had made the extreme June heat event at least five times more likely—and said the probability was likely even higher.
Inside Climate News, 4 Jul 2019: Climate change fingerprints were all over Europe's latest heat wave, study finds
