BRUSSELS, August 17 (TASR) – Europe is fighting the heat again this summer, and forest fires are raging across the continent from Mediterranean Sea after Spain . Here's how climate change is driving these events.

HOTTER, MORE FREQUENT HEAT WAVES

Climate change is making heat waves hotter and more frequent. This is the case in most terrestrial regions and has been confirmed by the United Nations' global panel of climate scientists, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Greenhouse gas emissions from human activity have warmed the planet by approximately 1.2 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times. This warmer baseline means that higher temperatures can be reached during extreme heat. Every heat wave we experience today has been warmer and more frequent as a result of climate change, said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London who co-leads the global research collaboration World Weather Attribution.