The UK’s extreme heatwave would have been ‘virtually impossible’ without climate change
Emergency services fight fires on July 19th, 2022, in Wennington, England. A series of grass fires broke out around the British capital amid an intense heatwave. | Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images Climate change made the record-smashing heatwave in the UK last week at least 10 times more likely, new research has found. The analysis was published yesterday by the World Weather Attribution initiative, a collaboration of scientists from universities and research institutes around the globe.
In a climate unaffected by human-induced climate change, it would be virtually impossible for temperatures in the UK to reach 40C but climate change is already making UK heatwaves more frequent, intense and long-lasting," Mark McCarthy, science manager of the National Climate Information Centre, said in a Met Office press release.
The Met Office declared, for the first time, a Red" heat warning for exceptional heat" in parts of England for...