Unum
2024-08-05 00:36:08 UTC
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/climate-change-heat-wave-europe-america
New analyses find that warming is fueling severe hot spells on both sides of
the Atlantic this summer, spurring warnings about the need to guard against
increasingly dangerous heat.
On Friday, close to half of Americans will endure heat made three times more
likely by warming, according to a report from Climate Central. Heading into
the weekend, extreme heat will bear down on the Rocky Mountains, the Great
Plains, and much of the Southeast, with high humidity sending the heat index,
an indicator of how hot it feels, above 110 degrees F (43 degrees C) in some
parts.
The U.S. hot spell follows a heat wave that settled over southern Europe in
July, when temperatures topped 104 degrees F (40 degrees C) in parts of Spain
and the Balkans. A new analysis from World Weather Attribution finds the heat
would have been “virtually impossible if humans had not warmed the planet by
burning fossil fuels.”
Heat has proved especially dangerous in Europe, though estimates of heat
deaths vary significantly. Official records tend to undercount such deaths — a
heart attack prompted by a hot spell will be recorded as a heart attack, not a
heat death. Scientists can infer how many people are actually killed by heat
by tallying the number of excess deaths during hot periods, though methods
differ. According to one study, which gauged the effect of even modest
warmth, heat has killed more than 175,000 people in Europe each year, on
average, since 2000.
New analyses find that warming is fueling severe hot spells on both sides of
the Atlantic this summer, spurring warnings about the need to guard against
increasingly dangerous heat.
On Friday, close to half of Americans will endure heat made three times more
likely by warming, according to a report from Climate Central. Heading into
the weekend, extreme heat will bear down on the Rocky Mountains, the Great
Plains, and much of the Southeast, with high humidity sending the heat index,
an indicator of how hot it feels, above 110 degrees F (43 degrees C) in some
parts.
The U.S. hot spell follows a heat wave that settled over southern Europe in
July, when temperatures topped 104 degrees F (40 degrees C) in parts of Spain
and the Balkans. A new analysis from World Weather Attribution finds the heat
would have been “virtually impossible if humans had not warmed the planet by
burning fossil fuels.”
Heat has proved especially dangerous in Europe, though estimates of heat
deaths vary significantly. Official records tend to undercount such deaths — a
heart attack prompted by a hot spell will be recorded as a heart attack, not a
heat death. Scientists can infer how many people are actually killed by heat
by tallying the number of excess deaths during hot periods, though methods
differ. According to one study, which gauged the effect of even modest
warmth, heat has killed more than 175,000 people in Europe each year, on
average, since 2000.