http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=588847Blisteringly hot summers similar to the one in 2003 when thousands of people in continental Europe died of heatstroke will become commonplace because of climate change, a study has found.
Scientists estimate global warming has already doubled the risk of similar hot summers, and if the climate continues to change, they will occur every couple of years.
It is estimated that between 22,000 and 35,000 people died heat-related deaths in Europe during the summer of 2003, when soaring temperatures and drought also caused widespread forest fires and crop failures in the Mediterranean area.
Until now it has not been possible to say with any accuracy how much of this extra heat was the result of man-made global warming and how much of it was the result of a naturally warm summer. But Peter Stott, of the Met Office's Hadley Centre, and Daithi Stone and Myles Allen, of Oxford University, have found a way of teasing apart the human and natural influences on the temperatures measured across Europe in 2003. Using a computer model of the climate, they found the extra heat that made the summer of 2003 the hottest for at least 500 years was largely the result of human influences, such as the burning of fossil fuel which exacerbates the planet's greenhouse effect.
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