Anthropogenic GHGs Increase Risk Of 2003-Style European Heatwaves - Nature

[hatrack]

LONDON - Human emissions of fossil fuels have raised the risk of more like the one last year that gave Europe what was probably its hottest summer since 1500, scientists reported Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Tens of thousands of people in Europe, many of them elderly, died during the sweltering weather as the mercury soared to new highs. Unusual meteorological conditions were blamed for the extremely hot, dry summer. But Peter Stott, of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in England, said human activity, particularly greenhouse gas emissions, at least doubled the risk of the unusual event.

“We are responsible for increasing significantly the risk of such ," Stott told Reuters, "largely through greenhouse gas emissions” of carbon dioxide and other gases that many scientists tie to global warming. “If we carry on as usual with emissions, our predictions indicate that every other year will be as hot as 2003 by the middle of the century,” he added.

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In a related commentary in Nature, Swiss and German scientists described the research as a breakthrough because it is the first successful attempt to detect manmade influence on a specific extreme climate event. “The advent of such attributable studies might profoundly affect the course of international negotiations on ways to mitigate, adapt to and ultimately pay for the consequences of climate change,” said Christoph Schar, a researcher at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich, and Gerd Jendritzky, of the German Weather Service in Freiburg."

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http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6629271/

[damntexdem]

1. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the ...

atmosphere.

But, gee, what if efforts to promote human survival as a species hurt business?