Intense frequent and long heatwaves caused by human activity

It’s boiling outside. You can’t remember the last time it was this hot. It feels like the sun is sucking every morsel of water out of your body. Hopes of a short respite in a delicious ice cream fade fast when you realize how quickly it will melt. 

Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick.

You’re in the middle of a heatwave. 

Heatwaves, measured as prolonged periods of excessive heat, are a complex type of extreme temperature event. These events occur naturally (albeit rarely) as part of our climate, and are driven by a delicate balance of the right weather patterns, local soil moisture conditions, and larger-scale climate variability patterns.

Unfortunately, they’ve increased in their intensity, frequency and duration over many regions of the globe since at least the middle of the 20th Century.

Read the story taken from the blog “SarahinScience” by climate scientist Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick - “Intense frequent and long heatwaves caused by human activity.”

(Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick is from the University of New South Wales and will be interviewed soon on the podcast “Climate Conversations” - Robert McLean)