By John Vidal
Guardian (UK)
August 6, 2004
One of Europe's leading scientists yesterday raised the possibility that the extreme heatwave now settled over at least 30 countries in the northern hemisphere could signal that man-made climate change is accelerating.
"The present heatwave across the northern hemisphere is worrying. There is the small probability that man-made climate change is proceeding much faster and stronger than expected," said Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief scientific adviser to the German government and now head of the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall center.
Prof Schellnhuber said "the parching heat experienced now" could be consistent "with a worst-case scenario [of global warming] that nobody wants to come true".
"What we are seeing is absolutely unusual," said Prof Schellnhuber. "We know that global warming is proceeding apace, but most of us were thinking that in 20-30 years time we would be seeing hot spells [like this]. But it's happening now. Clearly extreme weather events will increase."
Other climate scientists across Europe suggested the present heatwave was perhaps the most intense experienced and linked to global warming.
"We've not seen such an extended period of dry weather [in Europe] since records began," said Michael Knobelsdorf, a meteorologist at the German weather service. "What's remarkable is that these extremes of weather are happening at such short intervals, which suggests the climate is unbalanced.. Last year in Germany, we were under water. Now we have one of the worst droughts in human memory."
Climate scientists at the British government's Hadley center. last week said they had new evidence that the heatwave affecting Europe and North America could not be explained by natural causes, such as sunspots or volcanoes, but must be partly due to man-made pollution.
Yesterday Dr Peter Stott, who led the research team, said: "Once we factor in the effects of human activity, we find we can explain the warming that is observed. Now we have gone a step further and shown that the same thing is happening on the scale of continents."
The upper limit of global warming, they suggested, should range between 7C and 10C, which would severely affect food and water supplies, traumatize most economies, and fundamentally change everyday life.
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