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The UK’s recent heat wave was the Great British Bake Off that no one wanted – and it was made at least 10 times more likely by human-caused climate change, a new analysis shows.
But the World Weather Attribution project, which carried out the analysis, also said that its findings are likely to be an underestimate, warning that the tools available to scientists have limitations and are creating a blind spot to just how much of a role humans are playing in heat waves.
Heat waves are becoming more frequent and longer globally, and scientists say that human-caused climate change has an influence on all of them.
The tougher question to answer is: “By how much?”
To determine human influence on extreme heat, scientists use a combination of observations and climate models, or simulations. While models are often conservative in their findings, observed extreme heat in western Europe increased much more than estimated by the models.
“While models estimate greenhouse gas emissions increased temperatures in this heatwave by 2˚C, historical weather records indicate that the heatwave would have been 4˚C cooler in a world that had not been warmed by human activities,” WWA said in a press release. “This suggests that models are underestimating the real impact of human-caused climate change on high temperatures in the UK and other parts of Western Europe. It also means that the results of the analysis are conservative and climate change likely increased the frequency of the event by more than the factor of 10 estimated by the study.”
The UK last week experienced high temperatures that climbed over 40 degrees Celsius (104.5 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time on record on July 19, hitting 40.3C in the English village of Coningsby. The British government issued its first-ever red level extreme heat warning for several parts of England, including the capital, London.
As temperatures soared, the country’s infrastructure buckled. Train tracks bent out of shape; an airport runway melted; London’s fire brigade declared a “major incident” as a number of fires broke out, in what the service said was its busiest days since World War II.
People were advised to work from home, some schools were shuttered, while hospitals and emergency services were stretched to their limits.
“In Europe and other parts of the world we are seeing more and more record-breaking heatwaves causing extreme temperatures that have become hotter faster than in most climate models,” said Friederike Otto from the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, who leads the WWA project. “It’s a worrying finding that suggests that if carbon emissions are not rapidly cut, the consequences of climate change on extreme heat in Europe, which already is extremely deadly, could be even worse than we previously thought.”
Every fraction of a degree of global warming will bring worsening impacts of the climate crisis. The world has already warmed around 1.2 degrees Celsius on average, and there is a growing consensus that humans must try to keep warming to 1.5 degrees to avoid tipping points, where some ecosystems that the Earth relies on for its ecological balance may struggle to recover.
The scientists said the model results also indicated a heat wave as intense as last week’s in the UK is “still rare in today’s climate,” with a 1% likelihood of it happening each year. However, once again weather records suggest the computer simulation results are conservative and similar extreme heat events are likely to occur more frequently as well.
Photos: Wildfires in Europe
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Firefighters try to control a wildfire in Louchats, France, on July 17.
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A firefighter battles a blaze in the suburb of Pallini, east of Athens, Greece, on July 20.
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Residents of the neighborhood of Las Llanadas, on the Spanish island of Tenerife, rush to evacuate their animals from the area on July 23.
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Firefighters spray flame retardant in Hostens, France, on July 22.
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Police officers and locals attempt to extinguish a wildfire burning in the village of Vatera, Greece, on July 23.
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Burned areas are seen on Mont Saint-Michel de Brasparts in Saint-Rivoal, France, on July 22.
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Residents of the Greek village of Vrisa wait to evacuate the area on July 24.
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Firefighting vehicles are ablaze during a wildfire outside Brasparts, France, on July 19.
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This aerial photo shows burnt olive trees and fields in Megara, Greece, on July 20.
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A local resident fights a fire with a shovel in Tabara, Spain, on July 19.
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A wildfire burns atop a mountain in the northern suburbs of Athens on July 19.
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Helicopters drop water above a fire in Avila, Spain, on July 18.
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Firefighters take a break in Catalonia, Spain, on July 17.
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A fire engine is driven through El Pont de Vilomara, Spain, on July 18.
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A wildfire burns forest near the Portuguese village of Memoria on July 12.
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Burnt-out cars are seen in central Portugal on July 14.
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This aerial photo shows destruction in a residential area following a large blaze in London on July 20.
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Firefighters work in Avila on July 18.
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A firefighter and a member of Spain’s Civil Guard watch a fire in Zamora, Spain, on July 18.
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An airplane takes part in firefighting operations in Portugal on July 14.
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Burnt cars and trees are seen at a campsite in southwest France on July 19.
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Firefighters attempt to control a fire in the French communes of Landiras and Guillos on July 13.
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Firefighters work in Rebolo, Portugal, on July 14.
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A local resident tries to stop flames from reaching houses in Figueiras, Portugal, on July 12.
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A cloud of smoke rises from the Dune of Pilat, in the Arcachon basin of southwest France, on July 13.
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A firefighter looks on during firefighting operations in Espite, Portugal, on July 13.
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A wildfire burns through vegetation in Landiras, France, on July 13.
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People rest after being evacuated from a campsite in western France on July 13.
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People look at plumes of smoke caused by a wildfire in Malaga, Spain, on July 15.
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People take pictures of firefighting aircraft flying over La Teste-de-Buch, France, on July 14.
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Firefighters set a backfire to a plot of land to prevent a wildfire from spreading further in Louchats, France, on July 17.
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Residents watch as a column of smoke emerges from a fire in A Pobra do Brollón, Spain, on July 17.
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Residents of Alhaurín el Grande, Spain, were evacuated because of a fire in the Sierra de Mijas mountain range on July 15.
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A firefighter tackles the flames surrounding Portugal’s Ancede village on July 15.
In response to the publication of the new WWA analysis, Dr. Radhika Khosla from the Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, praised the scientists for their speed.
“By carrying out rapid analysis based on established, peer-reviewed methods the WWA team are able to get evidence-based results into the public domain while we can all still remember the major disruptions from last week’s extreme heat. This is the latest in a series of studies that all show the same result: climate change makes heatwaves more likely and more intense,” Khosla said.
“The level of heat the UK is now experiencing is dangerous: it puts strain on our infrastructure, economy, food and education systems, and on our bodies. As the study points out, many homes in the UK become uninhabitable in extreme heat. Adapting to rising temperatures, building heat resilience with sustainable approaches, and protecting people is an urgent priority as unprecedented temperatures become the norm.”
Peter Stott, a science fellow in climate attribution with the UK’s Met Office, said this won’t be the last time the country will be forced to deal with such extremes.
“Temperatures above 40C will occur again, possibly in the next few years and very likely over the next few decades,” Stott said. “Only by curtailing greenhouse gas emissions can we reduce the risks of such extremes becoming more and more frequent.”