LONDON, July 28 (Xinhua) -- The heatwave and near-record temperatures across Europe were the face of climate change, according to a latest study released by the University of Oxford.
Researchers from the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) at Oxford worked with the World Weather Attribution network (WWA) to analyze the European heatwave. They compared current temperatures with historical records at seven weather stations in northern Europe.
The results show that climate change more than doubled the likelihood of the European heatwave, which could come to be known as regular summer temperatures.
What was once regarded as unusually warm weather will become commonplace, said Dr Friederike Otto, Deputy Director of the ECI. In some cases, "it already has".
The findings indicate that the planet is definitely heating up, and for some of the weather stations, current temperatures are unprecedented in the historical record.
The potential environmental and social implications of the findings are undeniable and that action should be taken sooner rather than later, according to the team.
"This is something that society can and should prepare for -- but equally there is no doubt that we can and should constrain the increasing likelihood of all kinds of extreme weather events by restricting greenhouse gas emissions as sharply as possible," Dr Otto said.
Meanwhile, the team said that the study was based on preliminary analysis, and since it was being published before the end of the Summer 2018 heatwave, the definition of the period as an "extreme event" was based on forecast temperatures, instead of actual quantitative results.
