Geert Jan van Oldenborgh obituary
by Tim Radford from on (#5RE7X)
Dutch physicist who helped to identify the links between human-induced climate change and extreme weather disasters
Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, who has died aged 59 of multiple myeloma, was co-founder and member of a team of scientists who identified - at speed and while politically a hot topic - the links between human-induced climate change and forest fires, heatwaves, drought, flood and other specific meteorological catastrophes.
This is trickier than it sounds. Extreme events have always happened, and for decades most climate scientists were not willing to say that this or that flood or heatwave was directly powered by ever-higher greenhouse gas emissions driven by profligate fossil fuel use. If they did, it was usually long after the event.
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