Are humans to blame for the heat experienced in Geneva in the summer of 2015?

• DOI: 10.37207/cra.1.7
• Publication Date: 2020-01-06T16:52:38Z
• Authors: Oliver Angelil
• Keywords: 13. Climate action; 11. Sustainability; 7. Clean energy

Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, humans have been changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere by burning fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas. These gases are known to scientists as “greenhouse-gases”. Greenhouse-gases are vital to sustain life on Earth, but rapidly increasing concentrations of them can have catastrophic consequences. The word ‘catastrophic’ is perfectly fitting here, because, as will be demonstrated in this article, it is now believed our greenhouse-gas emissions play a large role in the occurrence of extreme weather events that cause billions of dollars worth of damage to infrastructure, and bring about tens of thousands of human deaths every year. We additionally explain how extremes occurring over spatial scales smaller than what climate models can resolve, such as a heatwave over the city of Geneva in Switzerland, can be attributed to human activity – the first study of its kind to use such an approach.