Simultaneous heatwaves caused by anthropogenic climate change

09.04.2019

By: Peter Rüegg

Without the climate change caused by human activity, simultaneous heatwaves would not have hit such a large area as they did last summer. This is the conclusion of researchers at ETH Zurich based on observational and model data.

Many people will remember last summer – not only in Switzerland, but also in large swathes across the rest of Europe, as well as in North America and Asia. Multiple places around the world experienced heat so severe that people died of heatstroke, power generation had to be curtailed, rails and roads started to melt, and forests went up in flames. What was truly sobering about this heatwave was that it affected not only one area, such as the Mediterranean region, but several across the temperate zones and the Arctic simultaneously.

ETH researchers have concluded that the only explanation of why heat affected so many areas over several months is anthropogenic climate change. These are the findings of the recent study that ETH climate researcher Martha Vogel presented today at the European Geosciences Union press conference in Vienna. The paper resulting from this study is currently in review for an academic publication.

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By studying the measurement data, the researchers realised that such large-scale heatwaves first appeared in the northern hemisphere in 2010, then in 2012, and again in 2018. Prior to 2010, however, the researchers did not find any instances of such large areas being affected simultaneously by heat.

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