Convicted.
Once more.
Further scientific evidence weighs on the world climate changer, and this time the burden is particularly crushing.
Literally.
Around fifty degrees in Jacobabad in Pakistan, temperature records for weeks, in India the highest values for 122 years - more than 70 percent of India and 30 percent of Pakistan were hit by an unbearable and in many respects historic heat wave from the beginning of March into May .
March in India was consistently three to eight degrees above the long-term average for this time of year.
A tenth of the world's population at the biological limit.
In addition, there was a series of forest fires, especially in many areas, and recently massive floods in many parts of South Asia, which heralded the monsoon season.
Together with the weeks of continuous dry heat, which resulted in total rainfall two-thirds below the average values, these weather catastrophes brought nothing but disaster.
Ninety people died from the effects of the heat, at least, because these are only the official figures.
In addition, there are countless victims of the heat in clinics and remote villages, power plant failures in many regions and millions of people without functioning air conditioning systems.
In addition, according to initial estimates, the harvest in the world's second wheat granary - in India and Pakistan - after Ukraine - has collapsed by twenty percent over the year - compared to normal years.
In fact, however, due to the favorable conditions at the beginning of the year, India in particular had counted on a harvest that was well above average.
Ten million tons were to be exported and the losses in Ukraine at least partially compensated.
Instead now: export ban in India, food shortages elsewhere and rising wheat prices worldwide.
Weather data back to 1951
All of this is largely due to global warming of 1.2 degrees since the beginning of industrialization.
Climate change has already increased the likelihood of mega-heatwaves like the current one in north-west India and south-east Pakistan by a factor of 30.
This is the result of an analysis by the World Weather Attribution Initiative (WWA), which has so far been published as a preprint – i.e. not reviewed.
This international research network has been systematically investigating the possible impact of climate change on extreme weather events such as storms, extreme rainfall, heat waves, cold spells and droughts for several years.
Dozens of earlier studies by the WWA group, which was co-founded by the German-born climate researcher Friederike Otto, had provided strong evidence, especially for extreme heat waves, that the respective catastrophes would have been practically impossible without man-made climate change.
Otto has been working at Imperial College London's Grantham Institute for some time.
Their statistical methods and the computer algorithms developed for such “climate change attribution studies” depend on weather data series that are as long and reliable as possible.
For the regions affected by the current heat wave, the researchers were able to draw on systematic observation data going back to 1979 for the entire study region.
Given the rarity of such extreme weather events, that's not very long.
For this reason, the measurement series are supplemented by global and regional climate models, in the new study with no fewer than twenty climate simulations.
which go back to 1979 for the entire study region.
Given the rarity of such extreme weather events, that's not very long.
For this reason, the measurement series are supplemented by global and regional climate models, in the new study with no fewer than twenty climate simulations.
which go back to 1979 for the entire study region.
Given the rarity of such extreme weather events, that's not very long.
For this reason, the measurement series are supplemented by global and regional climate models, in the new study with no fewer than twenty climate simulations.
From an Indian data series started in 1951, it was statistically determined that a heat wave like the current one is very unlikely to occur more than once every hundred years - given the current global warming of 1.2 degrees.
They must have been even rarer before industrial greenhouse gas enrichment.
At that time, the temperatures of a mega heat in the regions examined would probably have been at least one degree lower on average.
And this can also be read from the climate models with some probability: If the global temperatures rise to two degrees, the maximum temperatures would be at least half a degree to one and a half degrees higher and the probability of a comparable extreme heat would increase two to twenty times.
At least, according to the researchers,
There is still an extreme scenario that goes beyond the catastrophe of the present day.
In their more than 40-page study, Otto's scientists mention the heat wave in June 2015, when at least 3,500 people were officially documented as direct victims of the heat.
At that time, the monsoon season had already begun and the humidity in the air was correspondingly high, which means that the humid temperature, which is particularly problematic for human physiology, affected the body even more.
When the heat is very saturated with moisture, permanent temperatures of more than 35 degrees can make cooling sweating impossible and thus make life-threatening overheating of the body very likely (see our article "Caught in the vapor hell".
The mega heat of the past few weeks has been an extremely dry heat in most areas of India and Pakistan.
According to the findings of the climate researchers, it was also partly promoted by the climate anomaly La Nina, which influenced the global climate from the Central Pacific for months and shaped the air currents in the upper and lower atmosphere over a large area.
However, the climate forensic scientists at the WWA are convinced that the initial physical conditions caused by climate change were more decisive.
Friedrike Otto: "As long as greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, such disasters will become more and more common."