The record-breaking European heatwave in the summer of 2003, which was linked to almost thirty thousand deaths around the continent, was mostly down to greenhouse gas emissions from human activity, the Met Office has confirmed this week. The temperatures were believed to be the highest in Europe for over 500 years.

The study, authored by the Met Office’s Peter Stott along with the University of Oxford’s Daithi Stone and Myles Allen, shows how activities such as fossil fuel burning can be blamed for increasing the risk of such a heatwave and that this type of summer could be expected to occur as often as every other year by the middle of this century.

"We simulated 2003 summer temperatures over Europe -with and without the effect of man's activities -and compared these with observations," explained Peter Stott. "We found that although the high temperature experienced in 2003 was not impossible in a climate unaltered by man, it is very likely that greenhouse gases have at least doubled the risk and our best estimate is that such a heatwave is now four times more likely as a result of human influence on climate."

© 2004 Greenmedia Publishing Ltd.