Study: Climate change makes extreme heat ‘a hundred times more likely’

The recent extreme heat in Spain and other western Mediterranean countries is most likely due to human-induced climate change, according to a scientific study.

Climate change has made record temperatures of around 40 degrees in late April in Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Algeria “at least a hundred times more likely,” according to a report published Friday by the international research network World Weather Attribution (WWA). Such heat in late April “would have been almost impossible without climate change,” the study authors write.

A few days ago, parts of southwestern Europe and northern Africa were hit by extreme heat, with maximum temperatures of up to 41 degrees measured in the region, the WWA said.

In Spain, according to the national weather service Aemet, new April records were recorded in about 100 measuring stations across the country. The highest value of this most recent heat wave in the country was therefore measured on April 27 with 38.8 degrees in Andalusian Córdoba. The previous high in the city for April was also exceeded by 4.8 degrees.

“As other analyzes of extreme heat in Europe have shown, extreme temperatures in the region are rising faster than climate models predicted,” the WWA report said. But the problem is not limited to Europe. As a result of climate change, heat waves have “become more frequent, longer and hotter globally”.

“Unless greenhouse gas emissions are stopped altogether, global temperatures will continue to rise and such events will become more frequent and violent,” warns the international organization, which includes several renowned climate scientists.

In connection with the study, experts stressed that the Mediterranean is one of the regions most at risk from climate change in Europe. The region is already experiencing a very intense and prolonged drought and these high temperatures at a time of year when it should rain are only making the situation worse. Without a rapid halt to fossil fuel burning and adaptation to a warmer, drier climate, losses and damage in the region would continue to escalate dramatically. (sda/dpa)