This Summer’s Heat Waves Could Be the Strongest Climate Signal Yet

Earth's global warming fever spiked to deadly new highs across the Northern Hemisphere this summer, and we're feeling the results—extreme heat is now blamed for hundreds of deaths, droughts threaten food supplies, wildfires have raced through neighborhoods in the western United States, Greece and as far north as the Arctic Circle.

Extreme heat killed more than 80 people in Japan
in July, just a few weeks after flooding from downpours
 was blamed for more than 200 deaths there.

At sea, record and near-record warm oceans have sent soggy masses of air surging landward, fueling extreme rainfall and flooding in Japan and the eastern U.S. In Europe, the Baltic Sea is so warm that potentially toxic blue-green algae is spreading across its surface.

There shouldn't be any doubt that some of the deadliest of this summer's disasters—including flooding in Japan and wildfires in Greece—are fueled by weather extremes linked to global warming, said Corinne Le Quéré, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia.

"We know very well that global warming is making heat waves longer, hotter and more frequent," she said.

"The evidence from having extreme events around the world is really compelling. It's very indicative that the global warming background is causing or at least contributing to these events," she said.

Read Bob Berwyn’s story from Inside Climate News - “This Summer’s Heat Waves Could Be the Strongest Climate Signal Yet.”