Climate change caused by human activities has made the UK’s July 2022 heatwave 10 times more likely, according to a study published on July 29. The researchers are also surprised by the speed with which the temperatures rise, much faster than predicted by the models.
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[EN VIDÉO] Global warming: our planet in unknown territory In the preliminary version – which only covers the first nine months of 2021 – of its annual State of the Global Climate report, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirms the trend of global warming. For the first time, the bar of a rise of 1°C compared to pre-industrial averages has been crossed over the period of the last twenty years. But the report above all highlights the many extreme weather phenomena that have occurred in 2021 and their consequences for the planet and for humanity. © World Meteorological Organization
On July 19, the temperature exceeded the threshold of 40 ° C in the United Kingdom, a first in this country hit, like the rest of Western Europe, by a heat wave which led to fires around London, damaging homes.
An international team of researchers has modeled the probability of such a wave of heat in a pre-industrial climate, then compared this probability with that of the current climate, i.e. an average warming of global temperatures of +1.2°C compared to the pre-industrial period.
They focused on records set in the hardest hit parts of the UK, central England and east Wales. It shows that this probability is at least 10 times higher with the global warming.
Extreme temperatures rise faster than expected
According to this study, extreme events affecting Europe have increased even more than predicted by climate models.
“In Europe and other parts of the world, we are seeing more and more heat waves with record heat, resulting in extreme temperatures, which are getting higher faster than in most climate models.says Friederike Otto, from Grantham Institute at theImperial College from London. It’s a disturbing finding that suggests that if emissions of carbon are not reduced quickly, the consequences of climate change on extreme heat in Europe, which is already extremely deadly, could even be worse than expected”she continues.
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