European Heat Wave "Impossible" Without Climate Change
Western Europe has been experiencing a heat wave so widespread and severe, it is the worst ever—and human-caused climate change is to blame, according to experts. A heat dome—an area of high-pressure that traps heat and humidity—has parked over the region for days like a lid on a pot, leading to temperatures higher than seasonal averages across southern England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. As the heat wave spreads east, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia are bracing for record temperatures.
In France, the average day and night temperatures across dozens of places hit 30 C (86F), the highest since records began about 80 years ago. At the end of last week, no fewer than 40 people in France had drowned, many of them trying to cool off in rivers and canals in risky places or not knowing how to swim, according to the BBC. People are using chalk to cover their windows to let in some light but reflect the heat.
In the UK, people were checking into hotels with air-conditioning, and searches for accommodations with AC had tripled since the first of the month, especially for parents with newborn babies looking to keep them cool. In London, ironically, several Climate Action Week events had to be canceled because of the extreme heat.
In Germany, its highest temperature ever was recorded at 41.5 Celsius or nearly 107 Fahrenheit. Eleven highways were affected, including the country’s famed Autobahn, which buckled open in two places from high temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit. German railroads told people not to travel on nonessential trips as the heat severely affected infrastructure.
A report focused on Europe shows that human-caused climate change is making days and nights hotter. The World Weather Attribution organization concludes that temperatures reached in Western Europe would have been virtually impossible 50 years ago. The team of international scientists—who analyze how extreme weather is affected by global warming—said that a similar June heat wave 50 years ago (1976) would have been almost 6.5 degrees Fahrenheit cooler, and had one occurred in 2003, it would have been 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit cooler.
They add that we are reaching the extent of our ability to cope with extreme heat. Events like the current one in Europe are tens to hundreds of times more likely to happen since the early 2000s. The organization stresses that a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels is critical to avoiding higher temperatures and their consequences.
Meanwhile in the U.S., just ahead of the July 4 holiday, a heat dome is likely to develop over a large part of the country from Minneapolis to Atlanta. Temperatures will range in the 90s to low 100s with high humidity, according to NOAA.
Space Weather Can Alter Earth's Weather
“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” That famous quote, mistakenly attributed to Mark Twain, may have new meaning for a type of weather that has many scientists concerned—so-called “space weather.”
Space weather is driven by giant explosions on the sun called solar flares, which can block radio communications here on Earth and fry satellite electronics. Space weather is also generated by geomagnetic storms caused by variations in solar winds, which can interrupt GPS signals and spark surges that overload power grids. The Sun is currently at the peak of an 11-year cycle, and activity is at its highest.
The threat posed by space weather is the subject of much international research and ongoing legislation. In 2020, the Space Weather Bill (PROSWIFT) was signed into law, which directs several government agencies, including NOAA, NASA, NSF, DOD, and the Department of the Interior, to collaborate on mitigating space weather hazards. A House committee will address the topic on July 1.
Meanwhile, new research from the University of New Hampshire found that solar and geomagnetic storms, which typically last for around a day, can exert profound and immediate impacts on Earth’s weather. Lead author Joachim Raeder found that geomagnetic storms significantly influence atmospheric pressure, temperature, and precipitation.
In the hours and days following a solar storm, he says that parts of North America can see sharp changes in weather—and the more powerful the solar storm, the more dramatic the shift. The study combined 67 years of hourly data capturing the intensity of geomagnetic storms over North America, as well as hourly atmospheric data during the same period.
In the study, Raeder saw surprising patterns. Regions like Canada’s Hudson Bay and the Rocky Mountains in the western U.S. showed notable drops in rainfall and snowfall following solar storms. Even more intriguing, large solar storms that strike in summer or winter appear more likely to suppress precipitation than those occurring in spring or fall. Raeder suspects that’s because electromagnetic radiation from the solar flares penetrate through to the Earth’s lower atmosphere by way of the polar vortex—the large area of low pressure and cold temperatures at the poles.
While this research won’t change the daily weather forecast just yet, Raeder says the sun’s activity should be factored into climate models to sharpen long-term projections. That way we might be able to heed that famous witticism about the weather and actually do something about it.
The study was published in Geophysical Research Letters.