North American heat wave ‘almost unimaginable without climate change’

Climate change has increased heat waves 150 times in Canada and the United States, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WWA) research program.

Scientists have compared historical data from the late June and early July to the early 1800s. Data show that the latest heat wave can occur only once, even if the current temperature rises due to climate change. Occurring for a thousand years.

“This is a statistic equivalent to real misfortune. What we see is unprecedented. It is not normal for records of warming to be broken by four or five degrees Celsius,” said Friedrich Otto, a researcher at Oxford University.

Canada and the northwestern United States have experienced unprecedented heat in recent weeks. Lytton, a Canadian municipality 260 kilometers northeast of Vancouver, recorded 49.6 degrees. The previous record in Canada was 45 degrees.

The study, which has not yet been published in a scientific journal, also warns of a recurrence of this exceptional weather event. Global warming of two degrees Celsius occurs on average every five to ten years, instead of once every thousand years.