Euro-Mediterranean Heat — Summer 2017

KEY POINTS:

• The summer of  2017 was marked by extreme heat in Southern Europe.
• Scientists with World Weather Attribution (WWA) conducted a multi-method attribution analysis to assess whether and to what extent human-caused climate change played a role in both the record hot summer (June–August) across the Euro-Mediterranean region and three-day heat waves such as the early August heat wave dubbed Lucifer.
• In many towns and cities across the Euro-Mediterranean region there is now around a 1 in 10 chance every year for heat waves at least as hot as those in the summer of 2017.
• The team found that climate change increased the chances of seeing a summer as hot as 2017 byat least a factor of 10 and a heat wave like Lucifer by at least a factor of four since 1900.
• If greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase in the atmosphere, a summer like that of 2017 will be normal in the Euro-Mediterranean region by the middle of the century.