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<\/p>\nThe extreme heatwaves and wildfires wreaking havoc around the globe are \u201cthe face of climate change\u201d, one of the world\u2019s leading climate scientists has declared, with the impacts of global warming now \u201cplaying out in real time\u201d.<\/p>\n
Climate change\u00a0has long been predicted to increase extreme weather incidents, and scientists are now confident these predictions are coming true. Scientists say the global warming has contributed to on the scorching temperatures that have baked the UK and northern Europe for weeks.<\/p>\n
The hot spell\u00a0was made more than twice as likely\u00a0by climate change, a new analysis found, demonstrating an \u201cunambiguous\u201d link.<\/p>\n
Extreme weather has struck across Europe, from the\u00a0Arctic Circle\u00a0to\u00a0Greece, and across the world, from\u00a0North America\u00a0to\u00a0Japan. \u201cThis is the face of climate change,\u201d said Prof Michael Mann, at Penn State University, and one the world\u2019s most eminent climate scientists. \u201cWe literally would not have seen these extremes in the absence of climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe impacts of climate change are no longer subtle,\u201d he told the Guardian. \u201cWe are seeing them play out in real time and what is happening this summer is a perfect example of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are seeing our predictions come true,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a scientist that is reassuring, but as a citizen of planet Earth, it is very distressing to see that as it means we have not taken the necessary action.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rapid scientific assessment of the northern European heatwave was done by Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and also colleagues in the\u00a0World Weather Attribution\u00a0(WWA) consortium. \u201cWe can see the fingerprints of climate change on local extremes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The current heatwave has been caused by an extraordinary stalling of the jet stream wind, which usually funnels cool Atlantic weather over the continent. This has left hot, dry air in place for two months \u2013 far longer than than usual. The stalling of the northern hemisphere jet stream is being\u00a0increasingly firmly linked to global warming, in particular to the rapid heating of the Arctic and resulting loss of sea ice.<\/p>\n
Prof Mann said that asking if climate change \u201ccauses\u201d specific events is the wrong question: \u201cThe relevant question is: \u2018Is climate change impacting these events and making them more extreme?\u2019, and we can say with great confidence that it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mann points out that the link between smoking tobacco and lung cancer is a statistical one, which does not prove every cancer was caused by smoking, but epidemiologists know that smoking greatly increases the risk. \u201cThat is enough to say that, for all practical purposes, there is a causal connection between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer and it is the same with climate change,\u201d Mann said.<\/p>\n
Other senior scientists agree the link is clear. Serious climate change is \u201cunfolding before our eyes\u201d, said Prof Rowan Sutton, at the University of Reading. \u201cNo one should be in the slightest surprised that we are seeing very serious heatwaves and associated impacts in many parts of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n It is not too late to make the significant cuts needed in greenhouse gas emissions, said Mann, because the impacts progressively worsen as global warming increases.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is not going off a cliff, it is like walking out into a minefield,\u201d he said. \u201cSo the argument it is too late to do something would be like saying: \u2018I\u2019m just going to keep walking\u2019. That would be absurd \u2013 you reverse course and get off that minefield as quick as you can. It is really a question of how bad it is going to get.\u201d<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The extreme heatwaves and wildfires wreaking havoc around the globe are \u201cthe face of climate change\u201d, one of the world\u2019s leading climate scientists has declared, with the impacts of global warming now \u201cplaying out in real time\u201d. Climate change\u00a0has long been predicted to increase extreme weather incidents, and scientists are now confident these predictions are …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2968,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2966\/revisions\/2968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}