In this latest study of the prolonged Siberian heatwave, scientists from France, Germany, Netherlands, Russia, Switzerland and the UK collaborated to examine to what extent human-induced climate change had played a role in making this heatwave hotter and more likely, according to the UK’s Met Office
What the researchers discovered is nothing less than astounding and very worrisome. According to Science News, the study suggests that climate change made the prolonged heat in the region at least 600 times more likely — and possibly as much as 99,000 times more likely.
“We wouldn’t expect the natural world to generate [such a heat wave] in anything less than 800,000 years or so,” climate scientist Andrew Ciavarella of the U.K. Met Office in Exeter, England, said July 14 in a news conference. It’s “effectively impossible without human influence.”
The World Weather Attrition Network study was posted online July 15, 2020. It primarily examines two aspects of the Siberian heatwave: “the persistence and intensity of average temperatures across Siberia from January to June 2020; and daily maximum temperatures during June 2020 in the remote Siberian town of Verkhoyansk.”
@CopernicusEU
#Sentinel2 on July 4th, is located just 60 km east of #Krasnoyarsk region(68N,107N).
Folks may remember when the little village of Verkhoyansk made international headlines when it logged a record high temperature of 38° Celsius (100.4° Fahrenheit) on June 20. This record was just one extreme event in a series of extremes in the region, including the persistent wildfires, the melting of the permafrost and the ensuing collapse of buildings and other structures,
Using computer modeling and actual weather observations, along with satellite data, the scientists compared the climate as it is today, with about 1°C of global warming, with the climate as it would have been without human influence.
The analysis found that the extreme heat in Siberia from January to June this year would only happen less than once in every 80,000 years without human-induced climate change – making it almost impossible in a climate that had not been warmed by greenhouse gas emissions.
By 2050, temperatures in Siberia could increase by between 2.5 degrees to as much as 7 degrees compared to the year 1900, the report finds. We need to remember that the Arctic is warming twice as fast as any place else on Earth. And even though these heatwaves have become somewhat commonplace to many people, it still shouldn’t make them any less shocking or alarming.
