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The role of climate change in the current global heatwaves has split some of the most eminent scientific advisers.

Differences emerged Tuesday about whether decades of dire predictions on the impact of global warming are “coming true before our eyes”, or if the Northern Hemisphere is simply experiencing a particularly hot summer — albeit one with tragic consequences.

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To one body of opinion, the sustained and searing temperatures currently hitting Britain, Africa, Canada and Japan cannot be a coincidence.

The heatwave of 1976 may have been a freak, experts said, but in that year the serious heat was confined mainly to the U.K. and Western Europe, whereas now it is happening all at once in multiple regions across the planet.

Photo by Lee Jin-man/AP

The argument was summed up last night by Professor Peter Stott, who leads the British Met Office’s climate monitoring team.

“What we’ve seen this summer is repeated (dice) throws throwing up a six in different parts of the world,” he said.