Norbert Koll, a vacation-rental owner in Ahrweiler, Germany, said that record-breaking floods that struck the area last July “hit him like a brick.”
To distinguish unprecedented heat from everyday weather, scientists measure whether a region’s temperature during a particular time period is above or below the region’s historical temperature for the same time period. Scientists say damaging spring frosts – such as the one that destroyed winemakers’ crops in France last April – are an example of a weather event that is more likely in a warming world.
Heat waves are especially dangerous for vulnerable populations, including people without air conditioning or homes. Robert Vautard, director of the French climate research group Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace, said that aggressive, record-breaking heat waves are more likely in a warming world. “It got to a point where even taking showers multiple times a day and trying to drink cold things was not really doing anything,” said Le Blanc. “You had to get out of it.”