Man-made climate change worsened the heatwave in Europe last week, researchers say. Temperatures were up to 3 degrees higher than in a stable climate.
The research team World Weather Attribution has analyzed the heat period and presented the results on Friday – just one week after the heat wave occurred.
The main conclusion is that man-made global warming has made heat waves of this caliber far more likely.
The heat west of the European mainland last week would have been “extremely unlikely” without climate change, according to the researchers.
In an unchanged climate, temperatures during a heat wave in July would most likely have been lower. The difference is between 1.5 and 3 degrees in all the places the researchers have analyzed.
Last week, new national heat records were set in five European countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Norway, too, was strongly influenced by the heat, and in Mosjøen in Nordland, the temperature rose to 35.0 degrees. New county records were set in Nordland and three other counties.
