A deadly heatwave sweeping across Europe is breaking temperature records, igniting wildfires and disrupting transport as the continent grapples with the impacts of climate change.
In France, Brest – on the normally cool Atlantic coast – saw the temperature reach a record 39.3C in the afternoon, 18C above normal and breaking the 1949 record of 35.2C, while Nantes, also in Brittany, registered 42C. Elsewhere in the west of the country, the heat exceeded or approached the record levels of the 2019 heatwave. Meanwhile, the temperature in London reached 37.4 degrees.
UK temperatures are expected to rise even higher on Tuesday as an unusual weather pattern brings hot air from southern Europe further north.
At least five European countries have declared states of emergency or issued red alerts, and governments are scrambling to care for tens of thousands of people who have been displaced by the fires.
“Climate change is killing people, our ecosystem and what is most precious to us,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Monday during a visit to an area hit by fires. Forest fires are also raging in France, Portugal and Greece, fueled by long periods of hot weather and relatively dry winters.
Just a year after floods killed more than 200 people in Germany and Belgium, this week’s record heat wave underscores the urgency of climate change, including in some countries that have so far been relatively protected from it.
“It’s so extreme, so incredible,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus climate change agency, referring to the heat wave. “There are record events across Europe at this stage,” he added, pointing to high temperatures in northern Europe in particular.
The heat disaster comes as Europe is in the grip of an energy crisis, with several countries planning to burn more coal this winter, which will increase greenhouse gas emissions.
“We are almost reaching a point where Mother Earth will throw humanity away like an old skin, get rid of us all,” said Frans Timmermans, the EU’s top climate official. Calling for more action to stop the climate crisis, he added: “This is not about saving the planet. It’s about saving humanity.”
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In France, more than 16,000 people – campers, other holidaymakers and residents – have been evacuated to protect themselves from two large pine forest fires burning in the southwestern French countryside near Bordeaux, according to the French government.
“We’re not just noticing climate change, it’s staring us in the face,” said Jean-Luc Glaze, president of the Gironde department around Bordeaux. He told French newspaper Le Monde that the large fire in Landiras south of the city was a “monster”.
In the UK, train services were severely disrupted due to the risk of rails warping in the heat, and some schools closed early due to heating problems. Wales set a new temperature record of 37.1C and temperatures in parts of England were forecast to reach 41C on Tuesday.
In Spain, where temperatures topped 45C last week, dozens of wildfires that forced thousands to evacuate their homes continued to burn on Monday.
The fires killed two people and destroyed more than 70,000 hectares of forest across Spain, almost double the annual average for the past decade.
In Portugal, more than 1,000 firefighters continued to battle 30 forest fires on Monday. Last week, the northern town of Pinhão recorded 47C, the highest July temperature in mainland Portugal.
Health authorities in the two Iberian countries attributed the deaths to several hundred above the number expected based on previous years of the heat wave – about 360 in Spain and 240 in Portugal in the first half of July.
Croatia was also hit last week by a large forest fire that broke out near the town of Zaton, near the holiday resort of Zadar. The heat wave is expected to increase in the second half of the week in the Balkans, making new fires likely.
Kai Kornhuber, a researcher at Columbia University, said Europe was becoming a “hotspot” for heat waves, with episodes of unusually hot weather increasing three to four times faster than in other mid-latitudes.
“Western Europe is experiencing its third intense heatwave this summer and it’s still early days [in the summer],” he said. The changing behavior of the jet stream, which drives Europe’s weather, is contributing to the increase in heat.
“Record-breaking is the new normal,” Kornhuber added, saying temperatures will continue to rise as long as greenhouse gas emissions continue. “In about 10 years, this will definitely be replaced by another temperature record.”
Additional reporting by Marton Dunay and Jude Webber.
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