This June saw major heat waves across Canada with peak temperatures — measured over a three-day period — of 7.4 C in eastern Ontario, 10.7 C in southern Québec, 7.2 C in northern Québec and 10.6 C in Atlantic Canada. On June 19, more than 100 locations across Canada set new heat records for that day, with Bathurst, N.B., being the hottest at 37.6 C. The year 2023 was the globally hottest year on record.
The 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report states: “Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming” and that “human-caused climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe.”
However, just what are the scientific, policy and societal links between the June 2024 heat waves and climate change? Was the heat wave just a normal climatic variation, or something which can be attributed to human-caused climate change?
