Image: Forest fire in Greece, July 2007. Rising temperatures are making wildfires in southern Europe more frequent and severe. Credit: Carl Osbourn, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What is happening with the weather in the Northern Hemisphere at the moment? Is the El Nino effect involved in the heatwaves? And what are the main impacts of these heatwaves on the environment and health? Dr Malcolm Mistry, Assistant Professor in Climate and Geo-spatial Modelling in the Environment and Health Modelling Lab at LSHTM provides the answers to these questions in this expert opinion piece.
Dr Mistry explains that "while there is no reason to say that such heatwaves are unusual in a natural climate system such as in a strong El Nino year, it is reasonable to expect that the additional heat from our warming climate can add extra thermal energy in our weather system".
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