Climate change made French heatwave ‘at least five times more likely’ in hottest June in history
- Global warming probably amplified France’s devastating hot spell, according to an expert from the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford
The record-breaking heatwave that gripped France last week was made at least five times more likely by climate change, scientists said on Tuesday as other data showed that last month was the hottest June worldwide in history.
Compared to weather stretching back more than a century, the three-day temperature peak from June 26-28 in France was four degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than an equally rare June heatwave would have been in 1900, the World Weather Attribution (WWA) team told journalists in a briefing.
Global readings, meanwhile, taken by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) showed European temperatures were around 2C hotter than normal, and globally Earth was 0.1C hotter than the previous June record.
The heatwave last week smashed national records for the hottest single day as scorching weather spread across Europe from the Sahara.
It was so intense that temperatures were as much as 10C higher than normal across France, Germany, northern Spain and Italy, C3S said.