What causes the increased frequency of extreme heatwaves?

Heatwaves happen more often because our planet is wearing a thicker blanket made of heat-trapping gases. Imagine you are sleeping under your cozy duvet. If someone adds another heavy layer on top, you get warmer and stay warm longer, even when it gets cool outside. The Earth is doing the exact same thing right now.

The air around us has a special mix of gases, like carbon dioxide. These gases let sunlight in but stop some of the heat from escaping back into space. We have been burning lots of coal, oil, and gas for cars and factories, which pumps more of these gases into the sky. It is like piling on extra blankets every year. Because there are so many blankets now, the heat gets stuck inside our atmosphere much easier than it did a long time ago.

Another big cause is dry soil. When the ground has less water in it, it cannot cool itself down by evaporating moisture like a wet towel drying on a hot day. Instead of soaking up the sun's energy to turn water into steam, the dry earth turns that energy directly into heat. Think about how hot sand feels compared to the cool ocean. The land acts like a giant thermal battery, storing extra warmth during the day and releasing it slowly at night. This means summer nights stay hot instead of cooling off, making extreme heat last longer and hit harder.

So, we have more blankets trapping heat and dry ground holding onto it tightly. That is why our summers are getting hotter, drier, and staying that way for much longer than before.