Home ITCClimate change made North America’s deadly heatwave 150 times more likely

Climate change made North America’s deadly heatwave 150 times more likely

Last week’s record-breaking heatwave in parts of the US and Canada would have been virtually impossible without the influence of human-caused climate change, according to a rapid attribution analysis by an international team of leading climate scientists. Climate change, caused by greenhouse gas emissions, made the heatwave at least 150 times more likely to happen, the scientists found. The co-author of this article is Maarten van Aalst, professor at the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation at the University of Twente.

Pacific Northwest areas of the US and Canada saw temperatures that broke records by several degrees, including a new all-time Canadian temperature record of 49.6ºC (121.3ºF) in the village of Lytton - well above the previous national record of 45ºC (113ºF). Shortly after setting the record, Lytton was largely destroyed in a wildfire. Every heatwave occurring today is made more likely and more intense by climate change. To quantify the effect of climate change on these high temperatures, the scientists analysed the observations and computer simulations to compare the climate as it is today, after about 1.2°C (2.2ºF) of global warming since the late 1800s, with the climate of the past, following peer-reviewed methods.

Prof. dr. Maarten van Aalst

Heatwaves topped the global charts of deadliest disasters in both 2019 and 2020. Here we have another terrible example - sadly no longer a surprise but part of a very worrying global trend. Many of these deaths can be prevented by adaptation to the hotter heat waves that we are confronting in this region and around the world.

Prof. dr. Maarten van Aalst
R. Kwakman MSc (Robin)
Communication Advisor (Faculty ITC)

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