Today's Guardian analysis shows how people across the world are losing their lives and livelihoods due to more deadly and more frequent heatwaves, floods, and wildfires caused by the climate crisis.
The analysis of hundreds of scientific studies shows how carbon emissions are making the climate worse. The analysis found that at least a dozen of the most serious events would not have been possible without human-caused global heating.
A rise of just 1C in the planet's average temperature is worrying. Scientists say the role of global heating in supercharging extreme weather is happening at astounding speed.
The director of the International Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre said that the world is changing fast and it is hurting us. The world is on course for a rise in temperature. It would deliver more death and destruction than we have already suffered.
Attribution is a scientific technique used to determine how bad an extreme weather event is. There is a direct link between the disasters that people suffer through and the increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases caused by the mass burning of fossil fuels. The science of the climate crisis is brought home.
A new database of more than 500 events was compiled by Carbon Brief and shared with the Guardian. The analysis of the database and interviews with the world's leading scientists shows that the era of climate death and destruction is already upon us.
Extreme heat waves in North America, Europe and Japan, as well as soaring temperatures in Siberia and the seas off Australia, are just a few of the events that are considered impossible without the destabilisation of the climate.
More than 70% of the 500 extreme weather events and trends in the database were found to have been caused by human-caused climate change. Most of the events were cold snaps.
Over the last three decades, one in three deaths have been caused by summer heat.
70% of the total damages from Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Louisiana were due to human influence on the climate.
The Dust Bowl in the US in the mid-1930s was caused by global heating, and it has been hurting us for a long time.
There was flooding in July 2021.
Everything’s destroyed. There’s nothing left of the city centre. The numbers of dead keep rising every hour. Emotionally, we’re at our limit.
Climate damage has been going on for decades, according to Dr Fredi Otto. The policies don't reflect what we see in the science.
Climate catastrophe analysis has never been more relevant. The reality of global heating into the homes of billions and to the top of news bulletin has been brought about by the climate crisis. Record-breaking heat has hit North America, Europe, China, India and Pakistan, sparking fires. Australia, Bangladesh, and South Africa have been flooded. Many of these will be linked to global heating in the future.
The UN climate summit in Egypt in November is fast approaching and the situation is clear. In July, the UN general secretary said that the goal was to limit heating to 1.5C. Extreme weather will get worse without very rapid action to cut carbon emissions.
The former UN climate chief who delivered the Paris climate deal said that the days of global heating are over. Lives and livelihoods are being destroyed by human-generated heating. Human poverty and misery increase on a daily basis. It is pointless to continue on the path of emissions.
The studies show that what is being done is not enough. It's a life and death situation.
When the average temperature of the planet is up by just a little more than 1C, there's no time to waste.
Many of the people most vulnerable to the effects of climate change are located in the global south, which is the least responsible for the climate crisis.
We know for certain how much human-caused climate change is to blame for supercharging extreme weather, where it has already hit, and what it has cost us. It is sobering to see how much the climate crisis has affected societies and how desperate they are to stop further degradation.
Even if the pace of change is shocking, the fact that global heating drives more extreme weather is nothing new. Greenhouse gases pumped into the atmosphere by human activity trap more of the sun's heat and make weather systems worse.
The most obvious manifestations are heat waves and forest fires. More intense downpours and greater floods can be caused by hotter air holding more water. Most of the planet is trapped in heat and the oceans absorb it. Warming waters push up sea level and allow storms to crash further inland.
The world's scientists are trying to figure out if human-caused global heating is to blame for a particular extreme weather event as opposed to natural variability in weather patterns.
The scientists use weather records and computer models to calculate this. Our carbon emissions are heating the world we are in. The world before fossil fuels and warming are the other. Extreme weather events are assessed to see how frequently they are in both worlds. The footprint of global heating is clear if it is more intense or more frequently.
The heat wave will occur in May 2022.
Because of the heat, we do not get enough sleep. Then we go out and sit in an open space so that some air can be felt. But when there is no air, it seems that this heat will take our lives.
The identification of at least a dozen major extreme events that would have been completely out of place without human-caused global heating is the most striking finding of the Guardian analysis.
Van Aalst said that the events would not have happened if climate change hadn't changed. I have been surprised by how many times that has been the case.
Scientists found that the heat dome that struck the Pacific north-west region of North America in 2021 would have been impossible without human-caused climate change. Otto said, "It broke records by 5C and really brought home to me that something that was impossible from a statistical perspective can now happen as a new extreme." That is frightening
Otto said that this would happen every 10 years on average if the world warms to 2C. If the new extremes are worse, action to protect people from extreme weather will be useless. It is hard if you have never experienced it before.
There were simultaneous heatwaves stretching across the northern hemisphere from the US to Japan in the summer of 2018). Scientists found that the events of the year would not have happened if it weren't for climate change. In 2016 the extreme warmth across Asia would not have been possible without climate change.
The extra heat trapped on the planet by humanity's carbon emissions made these extreme weather events possible. This is the first thing. There is a heat wave in the north-west US and Canada. There are two It was a record hot summer in Europe. There are three. Siberia will experience a heat wave in 2020. There are four. In 2020 there will be a record heat and rain.Quick GuideShow
There are five. There is a heat wave in France this year.
There are six. A heat wave occurred in Japan.
There are seven. There were concurrent heatwaves in the northern hemisphere this year.
There are eight. There is a marine heatwave in Australia.
There are nine. Asia is experiencing heat waves.
There are ten. The temperature was high in the north pole.
There is a new date for the 11th. The hottest years of all time are the years of the last two years.
The temperature trend is rising.
There is a previously impossible happening on a planetary scale. Without human-caused heating, the run of recordbreaking hot years from 2014 to 2016 would have had a small chance of success. Without global heating, the hottest days and seasons wouldn't have happened.
Cold places are vulnerable as they warm the fastest. Without human influence, the temperature in Siberia in 2020 would have been practically impossible. A record 59m tonnes of CO 2 was pumped into the atmosphere as a result of the heat.
Billions of people rely on the seas and the ocean absorbs most of the climate crisis' heat. There were new disease outbreaks in farmed shellfish and the death of wildlife as a result of the marine heatwave of last year. The majority of marine heatwaves today are caused by humans.
There was a heat wave in July of last year.
First I felt a migraine-like headache. I drank lots of water but by then it was too late [to prevent heat exhaustion and going to hospital].
Scientists are beginning to link human-caused climate change to human deaths, and counting the toll of the climate crisis begins with deaths.
More than a third of heat-related deaths in summer were caused by human-caused global heating, according to the first large scale study. The key message is that climate change is already affecting our health.
Hundreds of people a year on average are already dying from this extra heat in the worst affected cities, including in So Paolo, Athens, Madrid, Tokyo, and New York. A lack of data limited the study's scope. A rough estimate of more than 100,000 deaths a year is given by the scientists, but it's difficult to make sense of it. It means millions of lives have been lost over the years.
Places are being hit hard. Human-caused global heating is the cause of three-quarters of heat deaths in five countries. The high vulnerability of poorer people is a result of the rapid heating in these regions.
More than half of heat deaths in Kuwait and Iran are caused by the climate crisis. There are a high number of deaths in southern Europe due to an elderly population.
Vicedo-Cabrera said that the estimates of impacts are necessary as they convey a clear message. The deaths have occurred with an average global temperature increase of only 1C, which is lower than the strictest climate targets outlined in the Paris agreement, and are a fraction of what may occur if emissions are left unaddressed.
According to a study, 7,000 to 11,000 children under the age of five died every year in sub-Saharan Africa because of global heating. The researchers said that the level of heat- related child deaths was double what it would have been without climate change.
India and Nigeria are examples of countries that lack the health data needed for such studies.
Putting the blame for deaths on global heating doesn't mean they can't be prevented with early warnings and adaptation. According to Van Aalst, these are almost entirely avoidable deaths.
It is difficult to assess the number of global heating deaths. According to a study, the deaths of up to 3,670 people were caused by Hurricane Maria.
Researchers have begun to add up the costs of extreme weather. Global warming was one of the reasons why Hurricane Harvey cost so much. The exacerbation of four floods in the UK caused $9 billion in damages, half of which was caused by global warming.
The food we rely on is being destroyed by global warming. $27 billion of insured crops were lost in the US due to emissions. On the other side of the world, New Zealand farmers lost 185 million dollars of crops due to the climate crisis.
Hurricane Harvey hit in August.
When I woke on Sunday the water was up to my chest. I’ve got arthritis but I was able to get out the living room window. I’m blessed to be alive.
It has a global impact. The impact of extreme weather is felt by each community in a different way.
One of the most startling studies to date was caused by the heat records in France in July of this year. The scientists concluded that the heatwave might not have been possible without climate change.
Without climate change, the heatwave in Toulouse would have been 4 degrees cooler. I think a change of 4C is amazing.
The steady rise in global average temperature is not mirrored by a gradual rise in extreme weather, which is what scientists are worried about. Van Aalst said things that take us by surprise are so common. The models wouldn't expect the heat trends in western Europe to be so quickly observed. Some researchers think the models don't capture everything.
The deaths of at least 243 people due to flooding in Germany and Belgium in July of 2016 shattered records. Global heating made those rains 9 times more likely.
Mild weather places are being affected by the climate crisis. The UK's temperature record was broken in 46 different places in July this year, and the heat wave is thought to have killed around 1000 people. Global heating made the heat ten times hotter. Storm Alex cut off power to many people in the UK in 2020. Human climate influence made the rain 2.5 times more likely.
Texas has suffered a lot in the US. More than a decade ago, when the then governor, RickPerry, was accusing climate scientists of manipulating data, there was an extremely hot summer that was 10 times more likely to be caused by global warming.
Between 2012 and 2014, the worst drought in a millennium hit California, with human-caused global warming a factor. Tens of thousands of farm workers lost their jobs as a result of the damage.
There have been fires in the western US that have torched homes. Scientists think that the area burned between 1984 and 2015 was doubled by global warming. Between seven and 11 times greater than it would have been without global heating, the record area burned in British Columbia in the last wildfire season was.
There is a heat wave in July 2021.
I saw more heat-related illness than I had ever seen in my career. [Even a small rise in body temperature], left unabated, can lead to longer-term brain damage. It’s like cooking your brain.
The climate storm is hitting the continent that is home to almost two-thirds of the human race just as hard. Extreme warmth across the region in 2016 would not have been possible without climate change.
The super typhoon Haiyan killed 7,000 people in the Philippines and pushed up a storm surge that crashed inland.
Tan, the youth activist, said that he saw the typhoons devastating his communities as a child. Attribution studies aren't just studies. The community that experienced that extreme weather event included a family, an individual, a student, and a young person.
Global heating is making China's weather worse. The sun was blocked out in the Middle- Lower Yangtze Plain and rice production was reduced because of the exceptional rains at the start of the year.
By May of that year, the south-west China had begun to experience a severe shortage of water. Human climate influence made the event six times more likely. The weather-related risk in south China was seven times higher due to global warming. The authorities reported that 30 people were killed in a conflagration.
It was raining in south-west China in August. The Leshan Giant Buddha statue has not been flooded since 1949, when the communist state was formed. Human influence doubled the likelihood of the deluge. Researchers said that hot events similar to the one in 2020 can't happen in the future.
India has been less studied. The climate crisis made the heat that hit north-west India and south-eastern Pakistan in March and April more likely. Scientists calculated that a similar heat wave in 2010 was 100 times more likely.
The chances of deadly fires in Indonesia increasing due to human-caused climate change were substantially increased in 2015. Tens of thousands of people are thought to have been killed by the smoke that covered the region.
The Arabian Gulf seems to have been barely assessed by the studies.
Australia has a government that has little concern for the climate crisis, but it is still an extraordinary concern for the country.
The influence of global warming is clear after the notorious "black summer" of 2019. Global heating made the high fire weather index four times more likely in the summer. Two years earlier, a baking summer in New South Wales was made at least 50 times more likely, and a record warm Australian spring would probably never have happened without human-driven CO 2 rises.
The Great Barrier Reef experienced a catastrophic die-off of corals in 2016 and people sweltered. Human influence on the climate made the hot March weather more likely.
A marine heat wave in March of 2016
It’s like 10 cyclones have come ashore all at once. Our estimate is that close to 50% of the coral is already dead or dying.
The president of South Africa described the floods that killed hundreds of people and led to the declaration of a national state of disaster. They were twice as likely and more intense due to global heating. A pattern of five to six times more likely due to global warming has been created by the high-profile "day zero" event in Cape Town.
Africa has been poorly studied. Nearly 10 million people were affected by the worst drought in decades in Ethiopia, which was caused by global warming. In 2007, a food crisis was caused by global heating.
Van Aalst said it is important to remember that these climate driven events do not act alone, but compound other problems. There is a lot of hunger in the Horn of Africa with thousands of people dying right now and the potential for hundreds of thousands more. They have had floods and other climate related problems. He said that the extreme weather had made the problems caused by conflicts, a rise in extreme poverty and high food prices worse.
Extreme weather events don't have an influence on global heating. Otto said that the studies show the depth of existing fragility. Poverty and over reliance on annual rains were found to be the cause of the recent famine. Otto said that this showed how much there is to be done to be resilient in the face of the current climate.
There was a severe shortage of water in 2015.
There is nothing we can do. We are having to sell our cattle to buy food, but the cattle are sick because they don’t have enough to eat.
There was 22 days worth of rain in one day in north-eastern Brazil. At least 133 people were killed and tens of thousands were displaced as a result of the floods and mudslides. Global heating was found to be at least partially responsible.
There are 650 million people in Latin America. The fingerprints of global warming were found in the southern Amazon. The die-off of trees resulted in 4 billion more tonnes of CO 2 in the atmosphere, equivalent to the annual emissions of the EU.
More areas of South America have been affected. Major floods in Uruguay and Argentina were made more likely by global heating in December and January of last year.
Scientists are worried about the lack of studies in the global south. Van Aalst said that it is adding to the injustice of climate change. The people that have contributed the least are the hardest hit by the situation.
Otto says the lack of knowledge is preventing people from dealing with the impacts. tribution studies try to disentangle drivers of disasters from the role of climate change There is a lack of local scientific expertise and funding.
We will be forgotten again without crucial support for global south-based research.
Global warming has been hurting us for a long time, but recent events have shown the extent of the climate crisis. The Dust Bowl was caused by heatwaves in the US in the 1930s. The families who were forced to leave their homes are mirrored by those who are still hungry today.
A significant human contribution to the probability of recordbreaking global temperature events as early as the 1930s was found in a global study.
Before many of today's youth climate strikers were born, Australia's "millennium dry spell" was partially attributable to greenhouse warming. The majority of the autumn floods in England in 2000 were caused by global heating. Flood heights in New Orleans would have been 15 to 60 percent lower without global heating.
Global heating is already causing death and destruction according to the science of Attribution. Do you think about the future?
Bill McKibben said that this is what a feverish Earth looks like nowadays. The fact that we are heading for 3C of temperature rise is frightening. 3C won't be as bad as 3C.
Vicedo-Cabrera didn't like what he saw. The number of heat deaths will increase as the world gets hotter.
Van Aalst is frustrated by the lack of attention given to the warnings. He said that worst-case scenarios were known about 10 years ago and are playing out now.
There is no reason to be hopeful. Maybe the world will realize that acting is cheap. The impact is more expensive than anything we could do to mitigate it.
Poorer nations may need more funds to rebuild after disasters. They show that the climate crisis caused specific extreme weather events.
The figueres is still optimistic. We are not doomed to continue this insanity. Each of us has a pen that we will use in the future. We have the ability to make extraordinary changes in order to correct the situation.
At this late hour, when darkness is at its most intense, we must find the strength to stand up, and that we can sprint towards the light.
Ma understood that the future was yet to be written in the Dust Bowl. She said that they might live, but that it would be one.
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