More Heatwaves Likely

More Heatwaves Likely

By Dr Arvind Kumar

According to a new statistical analysis recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a recent rise in deadly, debilitating, and expensive heatwaves was caused by climate change. This analysis reveals that extreme heatwaves have increased by at least 50 times during the last three decades. The researchers associated with this analysis, including James Hansen of NASA, conclude that climate change is the only explanation for such a statistical jump. James Hansen, a prominent scientist and outspoken climate change activist, wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post recently: "This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened. Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change."

It is further demonstrated by the analysis that between 1981 and 2010, extreme heatwaves covered 10 percent of the world, according to the paper, which is 50 to 100 times greater than the 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent of the Earth's surface covered by extreme heat from 1951-1980. The analysis not only finds that extreme heatwaves (defined as over three standard deviations above the base period) have expanded due to a warming world, but that moderate heat (over half of a standard deviation) has more than doubled: jumping from 33 percent to 75 percent. Many climatologists refer to this phenomenon as "loading the climate dice."

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