PARIS, July 26 — Heatwaves that obliterate temperature records as in western Canada last month and Siberia last year are caused by the rapid pace, rather than the amount, of global warming, researchers said today.
The heatwave that ravaged British Columbia saw temperatures hit 49.6 degrees Celsius , more than five degrees above the hottest day recorded in Canada up to that point. That is, of course, critically important, and the science has shown without a doubt that a warmer world will produce more and hotter heatwaves.
Likewise, if average global temperatures stabilise — at, say, 1.5 degrees Celsius above mid-19th century levels, the aspirational target of the Paris Agreement — dramatic new records would progressively become less frequent. “This is a very important study,” commented Tim Palmer, a research professor at the University of Oxford who was not involved in the findings.