Climate Change Made 2018 European Heatwave Up To ‘Five Times’ More Likely

A rapid assessment by scientists of the ongoing heatwave across northern Europe this summer has found that human-caused climate change made it as much as five times more likely to have occurred.

The preliminary analysis, by a team of scientists at the World Weather Attribution network, uses data from seven weather stations in Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland.  The team were not able to get sufficient data at short notice to include a UK station.

The findings suggest that rising global temperatures have increased the likelihood of such hot temperatures by five times in Denmark, three times in the Netherlands and two times in Ireland.

The sizeable year-to-year fluctuations in summer weather in Scandinavia makes it harder to pin down a specific change in likelihood for the heatwaves in Norway, Sweden, and Finland, the researchers say.  However, “we can state that, yes, heatwaves have increased – and are increasing – in Scandinavia as in the rest of Europe”, says one of the scientists involved.

Climate change link
From the UK to Canada through to Oman and Japan, the northern hemisphere has seen a pattern of prolonged heatwaves in recent weeks.  The record-breaking temperatures have been linked to wildfires in Sweden, Greece, and California and heatwave deaths in several countries.

Many news reports have speculated on the potential role that rising global temperatures could be having on the spate of extremes this summer.  Carbon Brief has published a summary of all the media coverage from recent weeks.

Now, in a rapid analysis over the past few days, scientists have been able to quantify the impact that climate change is having.

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