As the Fuel Merchants Association of New Jersey and New Jersey Propane Gas Association propagate lies to slow down the Board of Public Utilities’ effort to transform to a clean energy economy, more scientists have found compelling evidence that human-induced climate change is responsible for the historic heatwaves sweeping the planet from China to the United States.
The research conducted by World Weather Attribution (WWA), which was released on Tuesday, says the record-shattering heat in Europe and the US would have been almost “impossible” in a world without global heating.
The researchers, who analyzed records in all three continents, said the likelihood of extreme heat in China, which recently recorded its highest-ever temperature at 52.2C, is now 50 times more likely due to the climate crisis.
The researchers evaluated the role of climate crisis in these extreme heat events using peer-reviewed methods, weather station data of the hottest days in July, and computer models.
It is already known that planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions have increased the global average temperature by 1.2C, which, in turn, is making heatwaves more frequent and extreme.
Several heat deaths have been confirmed in the US, including migrants on the US Mexican border.
In Mexico alone, over 200 people died due to the heat. Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Algeria, and China also reported heat deaths, as well as a large increase in hospitalization due to heat-related illnesses.
Large parts of the population in Italy and Spain and over 100 million people in the Southern US are under heat alerts.
In all three regions, demand for power spiked and negatively impacted a number of important crops, including olive oil in Spain and cotton in China.
Scientists from the World Weather Attribution initiative collaborated to assess to what extent human-induced climate change altered the likelihood and intensity of the extreme July heat in these three regions.
Using published peer-reviewed methods, WWA analyzed how human-induced climate change altered the likelihood and intensity of 1) 18-day average maximum temperatures over the most affected regions in the western US, Texas, and northern Mexico; 2) 7-day average maximum temperatures over land in the rectangular box(5W-25E, 36-45N) covering the most affected region; and 3) 14-day average maximum temperatures over the lowlands of China, again covering the most affected region.
Heatwaves are amongst the deadliest natural hazards with thousands of people dying from heat-related causes each year. However, the full impact of a heatwave is rarely known until weeks or months afterward, once death certificates are collected, or scientists can analyze excess deaths. Many places lack good record-keeping of heat-related deaths, therefore currently available global mortality figures are likely an underestimate.
In line with what has been expected from past climate projections and IPCC reports these events are not rare anymore today. North America, Europe and China have experienced heatwaves increasingly frequently over the last years as a result of warming caused by human activities, hence the current heat waves are not rare in today’s climate with an event like the currently expected approximately once every 15 years in the US/Mexico region, once every 10 years in Southern Europe, and once in 5 years for China.
Without human-induced climate change, these heat events would however have been extremely rare. In China, it would have been about a 1 in 250-year event while maximum heat like in July 2023 would have been virtually impossible to occur in the US/Mexico region and Southern Europe if humans had not warmed the planet by burning fossil fuels.
In all the regions a heatwave of the same likelihood as the one observed today would have been significantly cooler in a world without climate change. Similar to previous studies we found that the heatwaves defined above are 2.5°C warmer in Southern Europe, 2°C warmer in North America and about 1°C in China in today’s climate than they would have been if it was not for human-induced climate change.
Unless the world rapidly stops burning fossil fuels, these events will become even more common and the world will experience heatwaves that are even hotter and longer-lasting. A heatwave like the recent ones would occur every 2-5 years in a world that is 2°C warmer than the preindustrial climate.
Heat action plans are increasingly being implemented across all three regions and there is evidence that they lead to reduced heat-related mortality. Furthermore, cities that have urban planning for extreme heat tend to be cooler and reduce the urban heat island effect. There is an urgent need for an accelerated roll-out of heat action plans in light of increasing vulnerability driven by the intersecting trends of climate change, population ageing, and urbanisation.