Temperature records smashed in western Europe and the UK

Temperature records have been smashed across western Europe and the UK, as a heatwave sweeps across the region.

The soaring temperatures have caused hundreds of deaths in Spain and Portugal, and wildfires have broken out across the continent.
Prof Hannah Cloke, natural hazards researcher at the University of Reading (UK) said “this unprecedented red warning for extreme heat is a wake-up call about the climate emergency.

We have had heatwaves in the UK before, but the intensity of heat that has been forecast, which will either break UK records or at least get very close, is enough to kill people and animals, damage property, and hobble the economy.

Even as a climate scientist who studies this stuff, this is scary. This feels real. At the start of the week I was worried about my goldfish getting too hot. Now I’m worried about the survival of my family and my neighbours.

Exactly one year on from the record floods in Germany, we should remember the lesson from that tragedy. Those floods were well forecast days in advance, but due to a range of failures in the chain of communication and action, people didn’t know what to do, and hundreds died. Heat kills more people than floods, and high ground from heat can be hard to find.”

“ I’m worried about the survival of my family and my neighbours.”

— Prof Hannah Cloke, natural hazards researcher at the University of Reading

Ernesto Rodríguez Camino, Senior State Meteorologist. Spanish Meteorological Association (Spain) said the current heat wave that is dramatically affecting Spain is a preview of the climate that awaits us as a consequence of the unstoppable increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere due mainly to the widespread – and still growing – use of fossil fuels (coal, oil derivatives and natural gas).

“Estimates for the evolution of heat waves made with the help of climate models show increasingly frequent, intense and long heat waves, depending on the degree of increase of these three characteristics, depending on the path followed by global greenhouse gas emissions.

“At present, the attribution of an extraordinary event – such as the current heat wave – to current anthropogenic climate change can only be made in terms of a change in the probability of its occurrence and after numerical simulations and comparisons with real observations.

“Surely, the studies that will be carried out when the heat wave is over and all the data are analyzed will indicate that, with the current perturbed climate, the probability of occurrence of this event has increased with respect to the probability of occurrence in a hypothetical climate not perturbed by human action. More seriously, the probability of similar events will continue to increase if the causes of current climate change, i.e., increasing greenhouse gas emissions, are not controlled.”