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  • WORLD VIEW

Heed blame for extreme weather

Now that specific floods, heatwaves and more can be attributed to our actions, decision makers can act.
  1. Richard A. Betts

    1. Richard A. Betts is head of climate-impacts research at the Met Office Hadley Centre and chair in climate impacts at the University of Exeter Global Systems Institute, UK.

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In 2019, daily maximum temperatures met or broke historical records in more than 24 cities in southwest China. In Yunnan province, a severe drought from March to June caused drinking-water shortages for 2 million people and crop failures over at least 13,500 square kilometres of farmland, with a direct economic loss of about 6.6 billion yuan (about US$1 billion). The chances of those extreme levels of hot and dry conditions occurring concurrently are an estimated 43% higher owing to anthropogenic climate change. A forest fire in the region killed 31 firefighters. The conditions favouring such fires have been made around 7 times more likely by climate change.

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Nature 589, 493 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00185-x

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