New scientific report identifies "the fingerprints of climate change"

The fingerprints of climate change are all over the intense heat waves gripping the globe this month, an international study has found.

Transcript

00:00 Death Valley in California, the hottest place on Earth.

00:04 The extreme heat may be a mere curiosity for these tourists,

00:07 but for others on this planet it is life-changing and even life-threatening.

00:12 The fingerprints of climate change are all over the intense heat waves gripping the globe this month.

00:17 That's the conclusion of World Weather Attribution,

00:21 a research group comprised of international climatologists that released their findings on Tuesday.

00:27 They found that our atmosphere, having been warmed by carbon dioxide and other gases for decades,

00:32 has made the current European heat wave 2.5 degrees Celsius hotter

00:37 and the one in the United States and Mexico 2 degrees hotter.

00:40 Using tree rings and other data sources,

00:43 the report says this month's heat is likely the hottest Earth has been in about 120,000 years,

00:49 easily the hottest of human civilization.

00:52 In China, the report found that greenhouse gases has increased the possibility of heat waves by a factor of 50,

00:59 and everywhere the heat waves will be more intense, more frequent and last longer.

01:03 It's a cocktail that not only disrupts human lives,

01:06 but is behind other weather-related disasters such as droughts and wildfires.

01:11 And since industry began burning greenhouse gases, the world has warmed by 1.2 degrees.

01:17 (speaking in foreign language)