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  • NEWS FEATURE

Droughts, heatwaves and floods: How to tell when climate change is to blame

Weather forecasters will soon provide instant assessments of global warming’s influence on extreme events.
  1. Quirin Schiermeier
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Plants growing from the dried out riverbed of Elbe. In the background can be seen churches and buildings of Dresden

Europe’s 2018 heatwave: the partly dried-out Elbe riverbed in Dresden, Germany, on 9 July. Credit: Jens Meyer/AP/Shutterstock

The Northern Hemisphere is sweating through another unusually hot summer. Japan has declared its record temperatures a natural disaster. Europe is baking under prolonged heat, with destructive wildfires in Greece and, unusually, the Arctic. And drought-fuelled wildfires are spreading in the western United States.

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Nature 560, 20-22 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05849-9

See also Editorial, ‘Pinning extreme weather on climate change is now routine and reliable science’

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