75% of the Sunniest Days Caused by Climate Change According to New Study

It has been a topic of debate for some years whether or not climate change can be directly blamed for the increasingly-frequent weather phenomenon that has been hitting the Earth over the last few decades. Every time a monsoon, drought or tropical storm hits a region of our planet, environmentalists are immediately clamouring for reform, citing such events as clear proof of climate change.

While science has shown that climate change might make more events likely, it has yet to prove a direct link between the two. However, a recent study from the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Switzerland has demonstrated just how much more likely these events have become as a result of climate change – and their findings are quite astounding.

Shocking Statistics

The team, led by Eric Fischer and Reto Knutti, analysed meteorological patterns before and since global warming has raised the Earth’s temperature by 0.85°C, an occurrence which can be traced back to the industrial revolution. They particularly investigated the incidences of rare weather events, such as how 1 in 100 day highs in temperature or 1 in 10,000 day highs in rainfall had been affected since the industrial revolution.

Their findings were quite ground-breaking. It appears that 75% of the sunniest days around the globe are caused by global warming, while 18% of extreme incidences of rainfall have climate change to blame. “A 1-in-10,000 day heat event is something that's only expected to happen every 30 years. But in a global-warming world, it’s turned into a 4-in-10,000 day event,” explains Fischer. “Three of those hot days – or 75% – would never have happened if global warming wasn't around.”

Fischer conceded that there were other factors at play when considering extreme weather events, acknowledging that such events took place in the past before concerns about global warming existed – or, indeed, before even we existed. However, he affirms that they are happening now with more regularity, largely due to human activity.

What Can Be Done?

For many years, environmentalists like Gary Noakes have been warning about the dangers of climate change and how these can devastate populations. Concentrating mostly on poorer and less developed parts of the globe, Noakes stresses how important weather forecasting is to ensure that innocent lives are not lost as a direct result of extreme weather phenomena.

Elsewhere, there are a whole plethora of ideas as to how we can stall the advance of climate change. A switch from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy, the halt of deforestation, the widespread employment of environmental waste and disposal practices and tighter controls on carbon emissions (including black carbon) could all work to undo some of the damage we have wreaked on our environment.

However, the new data surely dispels all doubt that global warming is real and climate change affects our daily lives… and that if left unchecked, will continue to do so to an alarming extent.