Heatwave made more than twice as likely by climate change, scientists find
Damian Carrington
27 July, 2018
1 Scientists say climate change is clearly happening. For many years, scientists have said that global warming is increasing the number and the strength of heatwaves. They say that by the 2040s, we will have even worse heatwaves every other year.
2 “Unusually warm weather will become common,” said Friederike Otto, at the University of Oxford and part of the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group that did the work.
3 The new analysis ∈ the summer of 2018 compares extreme weather records of the hottest three-day period ∈ seven places ∈ northern Europe, from Ireland to the Netherlands to Scandinavia with weather from the past and with computer models of how our climate would be without climate change. This way, researchers can find how much global warming is increasing the risk of dangerous weather.
4 “We found that ∈ the far north, ∈ the Arctic Circle, the 2018 heatwave is extraordinary – we have never seen this before ∈ history,” said Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and also part of WWA.
5 Across northern Europe, the group found global warming more than doubled the risk of scorching temperatures. “It is amazing that we can now see the changes at a local level,” he said.
6 “Most heatwave studies have used large-scale averages – for example, looking at temperatures across the whole of Europe,” said Otto. “In this study, we have looked at individual locations, where people live, to show the heatwave people have actually been experiencing.”
7 In the past, similar analyses have shown very strong connections between climate change and extreme weather events. The scorching summer ∈New South Wales, Australia, ∈2016–17; the “Lucifer” heatwave across Europe’s Mediterranean countries ∈ summer 2017 and the large amount of rain ∈ the US brought by Hurricane Harvey, also ∈2017, were all events made highly more likely by global warming. This means it can be “linked directly to climate change”, said the scientists.
8 The fact that the heatwave happened ∈ such a large area, across four continents, shows that global warming is responsible, said Professor Peter Stott, a weather scientist: “That pattern is something we wouldn’t see without climate change.”
9 During the 2018 heatwave across northern Europe, there were wildfires ∈ the Arctic Circle and a long period of heat across the UK and the European continent. In the south, fires have devastated parts of Greece, with many people killed.
10 The first six months of the 2018 were the hottest recorded for any year without an El Niño event, a natural climate cycle that raises temperatures.
CARRINGTON, Damian. Heatwave made more than twice as likely by climate change, scientist find. The Guardian. 27 jul. 2018. In: http://www.onestopenglish.com/skills/news-lessons/monthly-topical- news lessons/. Accessed on September 24, 2018)
Choose the correct answer about how far the heatwave has reached since 2016.
