European heatwave is worst ever and impossible without climate crisis
Scientists have concluded that the record-breaking heatwave currently scorching Europe would have been "virtually impossible" without human-caused climate change, with temperatures reaching unprecedented levels that shattered previous records across multiple countries.
Background
- Global warming has made extreme heat events far more frequent and severe. Attribution science, which this article refers to, uses climate models to calculate how much more likely or intense a specific weather event became due to human-caused climate change.
- This particular heatwave swept across Western and Central Europe, setting record temperatures in multiple countries. It is being described as the most severe ever recorded in the region.
- The study was conducted by World Weather Attribution (WWA), a collaboration of climate scientists who rapidly assess the role of climate change in extreme weather events.
- The core finding: what would have been a virtually impossible heat event in a world without climate change is now a recurring danger, underscoring that even temporary breaches of the 1.5°C warming threshold carry severe consequences.