“These are not just new odds. These are new weather extremes that are made possible by a new climate,” said Jeff Rosenfeld, editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
Credit: Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP

The devastating heat wave that hit Asia in 2016 and the unprecedented warmth of ocean waters off of Alaska that year had something in common: neither would have been possible without the excess carbon dioxide that humans have pumped into the atmosphere over the past century, according to new research.

That year was the warmest on record globally, and that extreme also would have been impossible without climate change, the report said.

The findings marked an ominous first for the American Meteorological Society’s annual report on the role of climate change in extreme weather events, which was released Wednesday. While five previous editions included research showing that climate change made dozens of heat waves, droughts and storms more likely or more severe, none had determined that the events could not have occurred under “natural” conditions.