Scientists conclude that the heat wave in Europe is "almost impossible" without climate change
An attribution study prepared by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) concludes that the heat waves registered this July in Europe and North America would have been “almost impossible” without climate change. During the past weeks, southern Europe, some areas of the United States, Mexico and China have suffered severe heat waves with temperatures above 45 degrees.. The WWA report highlights that in China the heat wave was at least 50 times more likely due to the climate crisis.
The objective pursued by this type of study is the direct link between a certain extreme meteorological phenomenon (or a group of them, such as the heat domes of this month of July) and climate change..
In addition, underlines José Miguel Viñas, Meteored meteorologist “they have the added value of being able to be carried out quickly, just a few days after the occurrence of the extreme weather”.
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This latest WWA attribution study has shown that without global warming, caused by greenhouse gas emissions as a result of the massive use of fossil fuels, the occurrence of such extreme heat peaks simultaneously would have been extremely rare in the case of China, and virtually impossible in the cases of the US/Mexico and southern Europe..
Parallel to the appearance of this attribution study, “the hypothesis begins to gain strength among the scientific community that the extraordinary amount of water vapor that the violent eruption of the Hunga Tonga submarine volcano – which occurred in the Pacific Ocean on January 14, 2022 – launched into the stratosphere (even reaching the mesosphere) could explain, at least in part, the large warm anomalies that we are experiencing so far this year, and that are leaving projections short. that were done last year,” says Viñas.
Initial scientific estimates stated that the underwater volcano ejected 50 million metric tons of water, but it is now believed that it could have been triple that.. Water vapor is a powerful natural greenhouse gas in the lower-middle troposphere but in the stratosphere it has the ability to retain heat from the sun and increase the temperature of the earth.
On the other hand, it is expected that as the El Niño event that began in late spring gains in intensity, the global temperature will increase.. However, the work does not mention a rather extraordinary fact that many researchers have pointed out, and that is the exceptional marine heat wave in the North Atlantic Ocean that has taken place since last April.
For Ernesto Rodríguez Camino, Senior State Meteorologist and member of the Spanish Meteorological Association: “It is a widely demonstrated fact that this type of episodes of extreme heat are going to devastate areas of the planet more and more frequently and with episodes of greater intensity, geographical extension and duration, depending on the level of global warming”.