Siberia’s heatwave would not have happened without climate change

THIS HAS been a sweltering year in the Siberian Arctic. Between January and June, temperatures across the region were more than 5°C warmer than the recent average (calculated between 1981 and 2010). In some spots they were more than 10°C above average. On June 20th in the town of Verkhoyansk in north-eastern Siberia thermometers read 38°C—the highest ever recorded north of the Arctic circle, according to Russia’s meteorological service.This extraordinary heatwave has drawn the attention of the World Weather Attribution (WWA) project, a collaboration among climate researchers who specialise in quantifying the role that climate change plays in extreme-weather events (such as particularly large and devastating floods, droughts or cyclones, as well as heatwaves). Such events occurred even before modern industries began churning out large quantities of greenhouse gases. But the resulting warming of global temperatures can make extreme weather likelier or more severe.