Henry Nicholls/Reuters
EUROPE was hit by a scorching heatwave in 2003. About 70,000 people, mostly very young or very old, died. Given the inexorable rise in global temperatures, suspicions naturally fell on climate change: it is well-established that as greenhouse gas emissions push the mercury up, weather extremes of all types will become more frequent.
But it took more than a year for rigorous science to confirm the hunch. Climate change had made the odds of an event of that magnitude at that time at .
For years, climate researchers toed the official line that it was…
