One afternoon this summer, the Algerian town of Ouargla, on the edge of the Sahara, recorded a high of 124 degrees Fahrenheit. Even for this hot country, it was an all-time record, according to Algeria’s national meteorological service.
Abdelmalek Ibek Ag Sahli was at work in a petroleum plant on the outskirts of the town that day. He and the rest of his crew had to be there by 7 a.m., part of a regular 12-hour daily shift. But the heat was so intense they lasted only a few hours. “It was impossible to do the work,” Sahli says. “It was hell.”
By 11 a.m., he and his colleagues walked off the job.
Sahli wasn’t the only one struggling with unbearable heat this summer, as record-breaking heat waves gripped countries around the world. The contiguous United States had its hottest month of May ever recorded and the third-hottest month of June. Japan was walloped by record triple-digit temperatures, killing at least 86 people. And in Northern Europe, heat waves were so intense that they caused nuclear power plants to be shut down because the river water that cools the reactors was too warm.
Why are heat waves getting more intense? Scientists with the World Weather Attribution project, a group based at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, concluded in a study this summer that the likelihood of having a heat wave like the one that baked Northern Europe is “more than two times higher today than if human activities had not altered climate.”
One afternoon this summer, the Algerian town of Ouargla, on the edge of the Sahara, recorded a high of 124 degrees Fahrenheit. Algeria is one of the world’s hottest countries. But it was still an all-time record, according to Algeria’s national meteorological service.
Abdelmalek Ibek Ag Sahli was at work in a petroleum plant on the outskirts of the town that day. He and the rest of his crew had to be there by 7 a.m. for their regular 12-hour daily shift. But the heat was so intense they lasted only a few hours. “It was impossible to do the work,” Sahli says. “It was hell.”
By 11 a.m., he and his colleagues walked off the job.
Sahli wasn’t the only one struggling with unbearable heat this summer. In fact, record-breaking heat waves gripped countries around the world. The contiguous United States had its hottest month of May ever recorded and the third-hottest month of June. Japan was hit hard by record triple-digit temperatures, killing at least 86 people. And in Northern Europe, heat waves were so intense that they caused nuclear power plants to be shut down. The river water that cools the reactors was too warm because of the heat.
Why are heat waves getting more intense? Scientists with the World Weather Attribution project conducted a study on this trend this summer. The group, which is based at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, made a striking conclusion. They found that the likelihood of having a heat wave like the one that baked Northern Europe is “more than two times higher today than if human activities had not altered climate.”