- GENEVA (AFP) -- Europe this
year experienced its hottest summer for at least 500 years, providing further
evidence of man-made global warming, Swiss university researchers said
on Tuesday.
-
- During the crushing heat wave between June and August
this year, which triggered several thousand more deaths than usual, average
temperatures eclipsed the previous record set in 1757, according to a study
by the University of Bern's geography department.
-
- The average temperature in Europe was 19.5 degrees Celsius
(67 degrees Fahrenheit), two degrees higher than the average summer temperatures
recorded on the continent between 1901 and 1995.
-
- Central Europe and the Alps region were the worst affected
by the heat wave, with temperatures up to five degrees higher than average,
the study said.
-
- "It is very likely that human activity and greenhouse
gases have caused this rise in temperature," said Juerg Luterbacher,
who directed the study.
-
- Researchers said they had pieced together a picture of
Europe's weather before the 19th century using physics, chemistry and the
study of the natural world -- such as trees, whose bark grows thicker with
hot weather
-
- They also relied on the writings of monks, many of whom
started keeping weather records up to 500 years ago -- and found no evidence
pointing to a summer hotter than 2003.
-
- "Monks used to write accurately and regularly about
the weather, with indications about grapes harvest or flower blossom,"
Luterbacher said.
-
- "Climate historians know how to interpret that data
and that is how we estimate the temperature of the time," he added.
-
- The researchers found that the number of very hot summers
had increased towards the end of the 18th century and the early 19th century.
-
- The overall rise in summer temperatures in Europe has
picked up over the last 26 years, with an average rise of 2.8 degrees Celsius
between 1998 and 2003. The last decade was the hottest of all, the study
said.
-
- In 1757, which set the previous European record, Scandinavia,
eastern Europe and Russia experienced a record heat wave, the study added.
-
- The study spanned an area reaching from the Arctic Circle
to Crete, and from Iceland to the Ural mountains.
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