The UK broke multiple records for the hottest day in June. Denmark experienced its warmest ever day – at 36.6C. One of Germany’s busiest motorways shut down after the asphalt melted and split. Welcome to Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent, which is heating up at nearly twice the global average.
A new study by World Weather Attribution reported that last week’s European heatwave was the most severe ever recorded and that temperatures were made significantly worse by climate change. Researchers also found that the extreme temperatures would have been “virtually impossible” 50 years ago. This summer has already shown a global warming of 1.4C.
Professor Ronita Bardhan, who researches the Sustainable Built Environment and Health at Cambridge University, said that this heatwave is far from “a one of a kind”. Extreme temperatures across Europe are “only going to become more intense and far more frequent,” she said.
Infrastructure across Europe and the UK is not prepared for this kind of heat. “For decades Europe has made their homes energy efficient and air tight, keeping in heat in the winter so they need less heating,” Bardhan said. But in such high temperatures those decisions can make homes far more hot and therefore dangerous for their occupants. “Now we need the opposite, it’s a misalignment of infrastructure,” she said. She hoped that the heatwave would be a wake-up call for governments to establish new infrastructure norms.
“If we continue to treat heatwaves as a short-term emergency, we will never be properly prepared for them,” Bardhan said. “This is not going away, the population has never experienced this level of heat, we are not ready for it,” she said.
Dr Akshay Deoras, an atmospheric scientist at Reading University, said that weather patterns indicated that UK temperatures aren’t going to drop by much in the coming week. “If we get another heatwave next weekend, that is not going to be good for public health,” he said. “The NHS and overheated homes need time to recover.”
The World Weather Attribution report found that heatwaves cause more deaths in Europe than all other natural hazards combined. In France, where temperatures reached above 40C, there have been an estimated 55 heat-related deaths this week, two-thirds of them from drowning.
Photograph by Annice Lyn/Getty Images
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