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  • Hi! Neil from BBC Learning English here.

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  • Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English.

  • I'm Neil.

  • And I'm Sam.

  • "No one is too small to make a difference."

  • Do you know who said that, Sam?

  • Wasn't it climate change activist, Greta Thunberg?

  • That's right. She went on to say this in her message to world leaders: "I don't want you to be hopeful. I want you to act as if your house is on fire. Because it is."

  • Her speech reflected the feelings of many young people around the world who think that not enough action is being taken on climate change.

  • And they may be right, judging by the record-breaking temperatures that hit Canada and the north-west of the United States in July this year.

  • Greta Thunberg's plea "to act like your house is on fire" became a reality for residents of the small town of Lytton, Canada which burned to the ground in a shocking wildfire - a fire that is burning strongly and out of control.

  • So, was the Lytton wildfire yet another climate change wake-up call?

  • A wake-up call is the expression used to describe a shocking event that should make people realize that action is needed to change something.

  • Maybe not, according to some climatologists who, worryingly, say that what happened in Lytton should not even have been possible.

  • So in this program, we'll be asking if scientists have dangerously misunderstood the realities of climate change.

  • But first it's time for my quiz question and it's about that extreme weather in Canada.

  • It broke records when the temperature in Lytton hit an all-time high on 1st July - but just how hot did it get?

  • Was it:

  • a) 39 point 6 degrees?

  • b) 49 point 6 degrees?

  • or c) 59 point 6 degrees Celsius?

  • All those temperature look really high, especially for snowy Canada.

  • I'll say a) 39 point 6 degree C.

  • OK, Sam, we'll find out the answer later on.

  • Seeing your hometown burn to the ground is bad enough, but perhaps even worst was the fact that the wildfires were so unexpected.

  • According to weather pattern modeling done by a team of Oxford University researchers, such extreme heat was impossible - in theory, at least.

  • The research team was led by climatologist, Geert Jan van Oldenborgh.

  • Here he is in conversation with BBC World Service program, Science in Action:

  • This is a wake-up call beyond the wake-up calls that we've had before.

  • Yes, and it's a very big shock in the sense that we thought we knew how heatwaves react to global warming and within which boundaries they're increasing (of course they're increasing in temperature)

  • but it's a gradual process we thought, and then you get this thing, and it's not gradual at all - it's a huge jump!

  • Professor Van Oldenborgh had been studying the impact of global warming on heatwaves - short periods of time when the weather is much hotter than usual.

  • Along with other climatologists, he thought that climate change was gradual - changing or happening slowly, over a long period of time.

  • But the Canadian heatwaves caused him to think again.

  • Instead of being gradual the temperatures saw a jump, or a sudden increase, of five degrees.

  • And it's this sudden jump that‘s got Professor Van Oldenborgh and his team worried.

  • By collecting data from all over the world climatologists try to predict changes in the pattern of global warming.

  • But, as Geert Jan van Oldenborgh told BBC World Service's, Science in Action, the heatwave in Lytton didn't fit these predictions at all:

  • Everything looked like a nice regular gradual trend like we were used to up to last year and then you suddenly break all your records by four or five degrees.

  • I mean, this is something that's no supposed to happen and it has really shaken our confidence in how well we understand the effect of climate change on heatwaves.

  • Despite all his research, Professor Van Oldenborgh is still unable to explain such extreme and sudden changes in the climate - and this, he says, has shaken his confidence - made him doubt something that he was certain was true.

  • And it's this lack of understanding worrying researchers because, as the story of the town of Lytton shows, the effects of climate change may be even worse than expected.

  • Maybe it's time we all took notice of Greta Thunberg's wake-up call to take action on climate change.

  • Especially if even cold, northern countries like Canada, or Britain for that matter, can experience such extreme changes.

  • Speaking of which, Neil, what was the answer to your quiz question?

  • Ah yes, in my quiz question I asked you exactly how high the temperature reached in the Canadian town of Lytton.

  • What did you say, Sam?

  • I thought it was a) 39 point 6 degrees Celsius.

  • Was I right?

  • Well, you were close but, in fact, it got even hotter, actually reaching 49 point 6 degrees Celsius - the highest temperature ever recorded in Canada by at least 5 degrees!

  • Phew! That's hot.

  • Well, we'd better recap the vocabulary from this program because we might be hearing these words a lot more in the future!

  • Let's start with a wildfire which is an out-of-control fire that is burning the countryside.

  • A wake-up call is an event which should make people realize that action needs to be taken to change a situation.

  • A heatwave is a period of days or weeks when the weather is much hotter than usual.

  • A jump is a sudden increase.

  • Whereas gradual means happening slowly, over a long time.

  • And finally, if something shakes your confidence, it makes you doubt something that you thought was true.

  • That's it for our look at one of the hottest years on record.

  • Bye for now!

  • Bye!

Hi! Neil from BBC Learning English here.

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