Climate breakdown made the UK’s recent record heatwave 10 times more likely, researchers have found. Analysis by World Weather Attribution reveals that temperatures in the UK during the heatwave, when it reached 40.3C, were higher than those simulated by climate models.
Extreme temperatures in western Europe are rising faster than expected, researchers say.
To find out whether climate change made the heat wave more likely, scientists analyzed weather data and computer simulations to compare the climate as it is today with the climate in the past, using peer-reviewed methods. They then looked at peak temperatures over two days of the heatwave, when the UK was hardest hit by the warm weather.
Extreme heat in Western Europe has increased more than climate models had predicted. While models estimate that greenhouse gas emissions increased temperatures in this heat wave by 2C, historical weather records suggest that the heat wave would have been 4C colder in a world that had not heated by human activities.
Climate experts are concerned that the impacts of global warming will be even more drastic than previously thought.
Friederike Otto, senior climate professor at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, said: “In Europe and other parts of the world we are seeing more and more record heat waves leading to extreme temperatures that are ‘have become warmer faster than the rest of the world, most climate models.
“It is a worrying finding that suggests that if carbon emissions are not reduced quickly, the consequences of climate change on the already extremely deadly extreme heat in Europe could be even worse than previously thought.”
Although climate change has made the event more likely, heat waves like this are still relatively rare.
The model results suggest that there is a 1% chance of a heat wave occurring next year. However, weather records suggest this could be an underestimate, as similar heat waves in Europe have occurred more frequently and been hotter than climate models suggest.
The study was carried out by 21 researchers as part of the World Weather Attribution Group, including scientists from universities and weather agencies in Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, the UK, the US and New Zealand.
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Meteorologists have called the results of this study “awakening” as they confirm what was previously feared: that climate change is having a big impact on temperatures, making extreme heat more likely.
Fraser Lott, a climate monitoring and attribution scientist at the Met Office, said: “Two years ago scientists at the UK Met Office found that the chance of seeing 40C in the UK was one out of every 100 in any given year, rather than one out of every 1,000. in the natural climate. It’s been troubling to see an event like this happen so soon after this study, to see the raw data coming back from our weather stations
“This new work confirms the previous study and also points us to new improvements. The latest developments, which made it possible to predict the heat wave two weeks in advance, are now powering the next generation of climate simulations.”
Experts have called for rapid cuts in emissions to prevent the situation from getting worse. Extreme heat is killing thousands of people across Europe, and hundreds of excess deaths in the UK are believed to have been caused by the recent heatwave.
“Heatwaves are the deadliest type of extreme weather event in Europe, killing thousands of people every year,” said Roop Singh of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Climate Centre. “But they don’t have to be. Many of these deaths are preventable if adequate adaptation plans are in place. Without rapid and comprehensive adaptation and emissions cuts, the situation will only get worse.”