|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Fri, 29th Jul 2022 10:59:00 |
|
UK's 40C heatwave 'basically impossible' without climate change |
The record temperatures in the UK last week would have been "almost impossible" without human-induced climate change, leading scientists have concluded.
The UK recorded temperatures above 40C for the first time on 19 July.
Without human-caused climate change these would have been 2C to 4C cooler, the experts say.
It is a taste of what is to come, they say, with more heatwaves, fires and droughts predicted in coming years.
The extreme heat caused significant disruption to the UK, with experts warning that excess deaths related to temperatures will be high. Wildfires also destroyed homes and nature in some places.
The world has warmed by about 1.1C since the industrial revolution about 200 years ago. Greenhouse gases have been pumped into the atmosphere by activities like burning fuels, which have heated up the Earth's atmosphere.
The findings are released by the World Weather Attribution group - a collection of leading climate scientists who meet after an extreme weather event to determine whether climate change made it more likely.
They looked at three individual weather stations that recorded very high temperatures - Cranwell, Lincolnshire, St James Park in London, and Durham.
Dr Friederike Otto of Imperial College London, who leads the World Weather Attribution group, told BBC News that even in today's climate, having such temperatures was still rare and that we would expect them between once every 500 years and once every 1,500 years.
But she said that as global temperatures rose, the likelihood of this heat happening more regularly would increase.
"We would not have had last week's temperatures without climate change, that's for sure," she said. These temperatures are at least 2C higher but the real number is probably closer to 4C higher than a world without human-caused climate change, she explained.
UK sea level rise speeding up
Cities warned to prepare for more wildfire
A really simple guide to climate change
The scientists use a combination of looking at temperature records dating back through time, and complex mathematical models that assess how human-caused climate change affects the weather.
"Because we know very well how many greenhouse gases have been put into the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution, we can take these things out of the model and simulate a world that might have been without climate change," Dr Otto says.
That allows the scientists to compare the two different scenarios - a world with 1.1C of warming and a world without that temperature increase.
Read original full article
|
| |
|
|
Back to Featured Articles
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Energy News
|
|
| |
| |
