A climate scientist explains the forces behind the summer’s extreme downpours and dangerous heat waves — and why new locations will be at risk in the coming year.
There’s an old joke about the fellow who has his left foot in a bucket of ice water and the right in a bucket of hot water, so that his overall temperature is average. That seems to apply to the climate during 2022’s northern summer of extremes: Overall, the planet was tied for only the fifth-warmest June-August, yet regional heat waves shattered records.
The Northern Hemisphere’s extreme summerSummer 2022 has indeed seemed to feature one climate-related disaster after another. Extreme heat in Europe led to wildfires, especially in Spain and Portugal. The drought in Spain dried up a reservoir, revealing the long-submerged “Spanish Stonehenge,” an ancient circle of megalithic stones believed to date back to around 5000 B.C. Electricity generation in France plummeted, with low rivers reducing the ability to cool nuclear power towers, and German barges had difficulty finding enough water to navigate the Rhine River.
Climate change for the most part does not directly cause the rainfall or drought, but it makes these naturally occurring events more intense or severe. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, largely from power plants, vehicles, buildings, industry and agriculture, trap heat in the atmosphere, heating the planet.
So, with the accelerated water cycle, wet areas get wetter, and dry areas get drier, while over the oceans, this results in salty waters becoming saltier and fresh waters becoming fresher. Natural variability also plays a major roleWhile the observed increases in extremes are a consequence of climate change, the weather events themselves are still largely naturally occurring.
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