Temperatures topping 40 degrees Celsius have swept across France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom this week, and scientists say the event could not have happened without human-caused climate change.
The World Weather Attribution group of scientists released a report Friday concluding that the current heatwave is the most severe ever tracked for the month of June in Europe. The study found the conditions would have been virtually impossible half a century ago, according to Al Jazeera.
"This event would not have been possible in June without climate change," said Theodore Keeping from Imperial College London, the study's lead author.
The group estimated that a heatwave with similar characteristics in June 1976, when Europe also experienced persistently high temperatures, would have been about 3.5 degrees Celsius cooler. During the major European heat event of 2003, temperatures would have been about 2 degrees Celsius cooler. The analysis found that such events are now tens to hundreds of times more likely than they were as recently as 2003.
Of nearly 850 cities the study analyzed across Europe, about 45 percent had broken or were expected to break their all-time heat stress records this month. The heatwave was reported Friday to be moving eastward, threatening Germany and central Europe with conditions similar to those that have already killed dozens in the western part of the continent and strained medical services and the economy.
"The weather pattern itself is not particularly unusual, but the temperatures are – or at least they used to be without human-induced climate change," said Friederike Otto, the cofounder of World Weather Attribution.
The planet has warmed about 1.4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, driven by the burning of coal, oil and gas. Scientists say this is making extreme heat events more frequent and more intense. The report identified phasing out fossil fuels as critical to limiting future warming.
The June heatwave is the second such episode in Europe this year. An earlier period of heat in May brought temperatures more typical of high summer to central and western parts of the continent.
