We recently wrote about the growing number of climate attribution studies. This summer devastating wildfires are in the news in North America, heat waves are wildfires are also occurring in Europe. In a BBC news report of another climate attribution paper extreme heat waves are now being related to climate change: “The researchers found that in the weather stations in the Netherlands, Ireland and Denmark, climate change has generally increased the odds of the current heatwave by more than two-fold.”
“Scientists are loath to say a specific event was “caused” by climate change – however they believe that this new study joins a growing list of solid links between rising temperatures and extreme events.”
Attribution studies are becoming more frequent and are being produced sooner after extreme events:
“The major European heatwave of 2003 was among the first events to be linked though it took scientists several years to do it – eventually they concluded that human induced climate change had made the event 500% more likely!
These days the attributions studies are much faster – just last year scientists concluded that the flooding in Houston, Texas was made 38% more likely by climate change while the so-called “Lucifer” heatwave in Eastern Europe was made 10 times more likely. This new study was completed in less than a week.”
The economists at Autocase are working on including extreme climate change scenarios (RCP 8.5 and RCP 4.5) into Autocase. We’ve already done this for a couple of clients and now we are making the process automatic and customizable – like everything else in Autocase .
And just a reminder that Autocase for Sites already calculates the cost, measured in lives lost, of extreme heat events and how green infrastructure can lower the urban heat island effect.
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