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3 of 4 extreme heat days linked to human-caused climate change

April 28, 2015

3 of 4 extreme heat days linked to human-caused climate change

Humans have not had as great an effect on heavy downpours, though.

If you find yourself sweating out a day that is monstrously hot, chances are you can blame humanity. A new report links three out of four such days to man’s effects on climate.

And as climate change worsens around mid-century, that percentage of extremely hot days being caused by man-made greenhouse gases will push past 95 per cent, according to the new study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Humans have not had as great an effect on heavy downpours, though. The Swiss scientists who did the study calculated that 18 per cent of extreme rain events are caused by global warming. But if the world warms another 1.1 degrees Celsius (two degrees Fahrenheit) — expected to happen around mid-century — about 39 per cent of the downpours would be attributed to humanity’s influence, according to the study. That influence comes from greenhouse gases, mostly carbon dioxide from the burning of coal, oil and gas.

“This new study helps get the actual probability or odds of human influence,” said University of Arizona climate scientist Jonathan Overpeck, who wasn’t part of the research. “This is key: If you don’t like hot temperature extremes that we’re getting, you now know how you can reduce the odds of such events by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

Lead author Erich Fischer, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich, a Swiss university, and colleague Reto Knutti examined just the hottest of hot days, the hottest one-tenth of one percent. Using 25 different computer models. Fischer and Knutti simulated a world without human-caused greenhouse gas emissions and found those hot days happened once every three years.

 

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