Global warming likely causing more heat waves, scientists say

Global warming has loaded the dice in favor of heat waves and may be to blame for the scorching weather across much of the United States and Europe this summer, according to several of the world's leading climate scientists...Scientists at the University of Oxford in England and the Hadley Centre for Climate Research and Prediction in Exeter, England, recently concluded that human-induced global warming has increased the odds by a factor of around six that Europe will see summer heat waves as extreme as that of 2003. That heat wave killed an estimated 20,000 people. And the odds are getting worse.