Almost the entire world population is exposed to global warming between June and September: study

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Almost the entire world’s population experienced higher temperatures between June and August as a result of human-induced climate change, according to a peer-reviewed research report published late on Thursday.

The northern hemisphere summer of 2023 has been the hottest since records beganwith prolonged heat waves in North America and southern Europe that caused catastrophic wildfires and spikes in mortality rates. July was the hottest month ever recorded, while average August temperatures were also 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels.

a study of Central ClimateA US-based research group analyzed temperatures in 180 countries and 22 territories and found that 98% of the world’s population was exposed to higher temperatures, which were at least twice as likely due to pollution by carbon dioxide.

“Virtually no one on Earth escaped the influence of global warming over the past three months,” said Andrew Pershing, vice president of science at Climate Central.

“In all the countries that we were able to analyze, including the southern hemisphere“where this is the coldest time of the year, we saw temperatures that would be difficult – and in some cases almost impossible – without human-caused climate change,” he said.

Climate Central assesses whether heat events are more likely as a result of climate change by comparing observed temperatures with those generated by models that remove the influence of greenhouse gas emissions.

It said up to 6.2 billion people experienced at least one day of average temperatures that were at least five times more likely as a result of climate change, the maximum value on Climate Central’s Climate Change Index.

Heat waves in North America and southern Europe would have been impossible without climate change, said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment.

“We have observed isolated heat waves,” he said. “They haven’t become five times more likely. They have become infinitely more likely because they wouldn’t have happened without climate change.”

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