Scientists say the historic heat wave that sent temperatures sky-high in the Western U.S. and Canada and caused hundreds of fatalities last week was “virtually impossible” without climate change, according to a study released Wednesday and reported by USA Today.
The study says climate change made the extreme temperatures at least 150 times more likely to occur.
“Heat-related mortality is the No. 1 weather-related killer,” said Kristie L. Ebi of the Center for Health and Global Environment at the University of Washington, who co-authored the study.
The state of Oregon in particular suffered over 100 heat-related deaths, with Portland breaking its all-time record three times in three days, finally hitting 116 degrees. The normal average high for June is in the 80s, according to the National Weather Service.
"Climate change is making extremely rare events such as this one become more frequent," said report co-author Sonia Seneviratne of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zurich in a statement.
"We are entering uncharted territory," Seneviratne said. "The temperatures experienced in Canada last week would have broken records in Las Vegas or Spain. However, much higher temperature records will be reached if we don’t manage to stop greenhouse gas emissions and halt global warming."
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World Weather Attribution, an international group that studies how climate change affects extreme weather events, is responsible for the study.