April Mediterranean heatwave ‘almost impossible’ without climate crisis

Flamingos walk through a muddy pond in the Fuente de Piedra lagoon, dry due to the lack of rainfall. Photograph: Carlos Gil/Getty Images

The record-shattering temperatures that hit the western Mediterranean last week would have been “almost impossible” without the climate crisis, according to scientists.

The heatwave across Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Algeria was made at least 100 times more likely by global heating, the researchers calculated. Before the climate crisis, such an extreme event would have been expected only once in a least 40,000 years, making it statistically impossible on human timescales.