Across the Channel, global warming is doing a lot of damage in a country. A scientific report indicates this heat wave could never have happened without human action.
Climate change has made a heatwave in the UK at least 10 times more likely, according to new research. The report was released on July 28 at the initiative of World Weather Attribution, a collaboration of university scientists from around the world.
” In a climate unaffected by human-induced climate change, it would be virtually impossible for temperatures in the UK to reach 40C said Mark McCarthy, chief scientist of the National Center for Climate Information. Normally, the average high temperature in London is around 23 degrees at this time of year. With global warming, the heat in this region becomes aberrant.
A series of fires
London firefighters responded to more blazes in a day than they had since World War II as conditions paved the way for many fire starts. Authorities are still taking stock of heat-related deaths, but an initial analysis estimates that nearly 1,000 may have died from heat-related causes in England and Wales between July 17-19.
” It is a worrying finding that suggests that if carbon emissions are not reduced quickly, the consequences of climate change on extreme heat in Europe, which is already extremely deadly, could be even worse than expected.says Friederike Otto, of the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London
In France, heat waves have been three times more numerous over the last decade than over the previous 35 years, according to Météo France. Last Monday, absolute heat records were broken in 64 municipalities.
