Climate change fingerprints found all over this summer's scorching droughts
Human-caused climate change made the drought conditions that gripped large portions of the Northern Hemisphere this past summer far more likely to occur, a new study found.
Why it matters: The study, published Wednesday, found human-caused global warming dramatically upped the odds of drought throughout the hemisphere outside of the tropics — making them at least 20 times more likely compared to the preindustrial era.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.