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| We Know What’s Causing This Heat | We Know What’s Causing This Heat |
| (about 16 hours later) | |
| Some of the searing temperatures that scorched the United States, Mexico, Europe and China this month would not have happened without human-caused climate change, my colleague Delger Erdenesanaa reports. | Some of the searing temperatures that scorched the United States, Mexico, Europe and China this month would not have happened without human-caused climate change, my colleague Delger Erdenesanaa reports. |
| Before humans began burning fossil fuels in enormous quantities, this month’s North American and European heat waves would have been “virtually impossible,” according to a newly released statistical analysis. China’s heat wave would have happened only about once every 250 years. | Before humans began burning fossil fuels in enormous quantities, this month’s North American and European heat waves would have been “virtually impossible,” according to a newly released statistical analysis. China’s heat wave would have happened only about once every 250 years. |
| “Without climate change, we wouldn’t see this at all,” said Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial College London and co-founder of World Weather Attribution, the group that produced a study released today, at a press briefing. “Or it would be so rare that it basically would not be happening.” | “Without climate change, we wouldn’t see this at all,” said Friederike Otto, a senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial College London and co-founder of World Weather Attribution, the group that produced a study released today, at a press briefing. “Or it would be so rare that it basically would not be happening.” |
| How can scientists like Dr. Otto be so sure? | How can scientists like Dr. Otto be so sure? |
| Extreme weather was around long before humans were burning fossil fuels, of course. Yet over the past couple hundred years, man-made emissions have heated the planet. And when the world is warmer, heat waves, hurricanes, droughts and fires all get more intense. | Extreme weather was around long before humans were burning fossil fuels, of course. Yet over the past couple hundred years, man-made emissions have heated the planet. And when the world is warmer, heat waves, hurricanes, droughts and fires all get more intense. |
| The body of research that measures these odds — how much more likely certain weather events are thanks to climate change — is called attribution science. That’s a rather dry name that undersells the urgent detective work of figuring out a crucial question: When extreme weather happens, is climate change to blame? |