NASA – June 2022 tied with June 2020 to be the warmest June recorded


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Extreme weather



Experts worried that extreme heatwaves in Europe happening quicker than expected, suggesting climate crisis worse than feared

Climate scientists have expressed shock at the UK’s smashed temperature record, with the heat soaring above 40C for the first time ever on Tuesday.

Researchers are also increasingly concerned that extreme heatwaves in Europe are occurring more rapidly than models had suggested, indicating that the climate crisis on the European continent may be even worse than feared.

Temperature records are usually broken by fractions of a degree, but the 40.2C recorded at Heathrow is 1.5C higher than the previous record of 38.7C recorded in 2019 in Cambridge.

About 2,000 heatwave deaths a year have occurred on average in the UK over the last decade, as well as widespread disruption to work, schools and travel. Scientists said the latest record showed that slashing carbon emissions, and rapidly upgrading the UK’s overheating homes and buildings, was more urgent than ever.

Prof Peter Stott, at the Met Office, said: “I find it shocking that we’ve reached these temperatures today in 2022, smashing the previous record set only in 2019.”

His research in 2020 showed there was a chance of the UK hitting 40C due to global heating. “But we calculated it as a relatively low likelihood – a roughly one in a hundred chance – albeit that those chances are increasing rapidly all the time with continued warming,” Stott told the Guardian. “Breaking 40C today is very worrying; we’ve never seen anything like this in the UK and it could be that the risk of such extreme heat is even greater than our previous calculation showed.”

The risk was certainly rising rapidly, said Dr Nikos Christidis, who also worked on the 2020 study: “The main message is that this event is becoming more and more common and by the end of the century it will no longer be an extreme.”

The role of human-caused global heating appears clear, as the scientists estimated that chances of breaking 40C in the UK without it would be less than 0.1%. Dr Friederike Otto at Imperial College London said 40C “would have been extremely unlikely or virtually impossible without human-caused climate change”.

Otto added: “While still rare, 40C is now a reality of British summers.”

“Climate change is driving this heatwave, just as it is driving every heatwave now,” she said. “Greenhouse gas emissions, from burning fossil fuels like coal, gas and oil, are making heatwaves hotter, longer-lasting and more frequent.”

Prof Hannah Cloke, at the University of Reading, said: “The all-time temperature record for the UK has not just been broken, it has been absolutely obliterated.

“Even as a climate scientist who studies this stuff, this is scary.”

“I wasn’t expecting to see this [40C] in my career,” said Prof Stephen Belcher, at the Met Office.

Climate scientists are concerned that the rise in extreme weather may be occurring faster than expected. “In Europe, climate models do underestimate the change in heat extremes compared to observations,” said Otto. “There are still problems with climate models that we don’t quite understand yet.”

Prof Michael Mann, at Pennsylvania State University in the US, said his research suggested that climate models failed to adequately link many extreme summer weather events to climate change.

“This is because of processes that are not well-captured in the models but are playing out in the real world – eg, the impact of warming on the behaviour of the summer jet stream that gives us many of the extreme heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires we’re seeing,” he said. “It suggests that models, if anything, are underestimating the potential for future increases in various types of extreme events.”

There were explanations for “crazy heat” extremes happening after only just over 1C of global average warming, said Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. First, land is heating much faster than the oceans, which cover 70% of the planet and dominate the global average.

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Second, changing weather patterns could deliver greater extremes in temperature, he said. “Europe is a heatwave hotspot, exhibiting upward trends that are three to four times faster compared with the rest of the northern midlatitudes. The reason? Changes in the jet stream.” Third, the slowdown of a key Atlantic Ocean current tends to increase summer heat and drought in Europe.

While 40C broke a benchmark in the UK, researchers in continental Europe, which is also in the grip of the heatwave, are now considering 50C. “In France, one cannot rule out 50C being reached in the coming decades,” said Prof Robert Vautard, at Sorbonne University. “For France, Spain, and many other countries, the current historical record is within 5 degrees of 50C, and we know such a jump is possible.”

Climate action remained vital, said Otto: “Whether [40C in the UK] will become a very common occurrence or remains relatively infrequent is in our hands and is determined by when and at what global mean temperature we reach net zero. Heatwaves will keep getting worse until greenhouse gas emissions are halted.”

“It is also in our hands whether every future heatwave will continue to be extremely deadly and disruptive,” she said. “We have the agency to make us less vulnerable and redesign our cities, homes, schools and hospitals and educate us on how to keep safe.”

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  • Fires scorch France and Spain as temperature-related deaths soar in European heat wave


Firefighters battled wildfires raging out of control in Spain and France, including one whose flames reached two popular Atlantic beaches on Sunday, as Europe wilted under an unusually extreme heat wave.

So far, there have been no fire-related deaths in France or Spain, but authorities in Madrid have blamed soaring temperatures for hundreds of deaths. And two huge blazes, which have consumed pine forests for six days in southwestern France, have forced the evacuation of some 16,200 people.

In dramatic images posted online, a wall of black smoke could be seen rolling toward the Atlantic on a stretch of Bordeaux's coast that is prized by surfers from around the world. Flames raced across trees abutting a broad sandy beach, as planes flew low to suck up water from the ocean. Elsewhere, smoke blanketed the skyline above a mass of singed trees in images shared by French firefighters.

In Spain, firefighters supported by military brigades tried to stamp out over 30 fires consuming forests spread across the country. Spain's National Defense Department said that "the majority" of its fire-fighting aircraft have been deployed to reach the blazes, many of which are in rugged, hilly terrain that is difficult for ground crews to access.

Fire season has hit parts of Europe earlier than usual this year after a dry, hot spring that the European Union has attributed to climate change. Some countries are also experiencing extended droughts, while many are sweltering in heat waves.

In Spain's second heat wave of the summer, many areas have repeatedly seen peaks of 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit). According to Spain's Carlos III Institute, which records temperature-related fatalities daily, 360 deaths were attributed to high temperatures from July 10 to 15. That was compared with 27 temperature-related deaths the previous six days.

Almost all of Spain was under alert for high temperatures for another day Sunday, while there were heat wave warnings for about half of France, where scorching temperatures were expected to climb higher on Monday. The French government has stepped up efforts to protect people in nursing homes, the homeless and other vulnerable populations after a vicious heat wave and poor planning led to nearly 15,000 deaths in 2003, especially among the elderly.

The fire in La Teste-de-Buch has forced more than 10,000 people to flee at a time when many typically flock to the nearby Atlantic coast area for vacation. French authorities have closed several spots to the public along that coast because of the fire, including La Lagune and Petit Nice beaches that the fire reached on Sunday, and Europe's tallest sand dune, the Dune du Pilat.

The Gironde regional government said Sunday afternoon that "the situation remains very unfavorable" due to gusting winds that helped fan more flare-ups overnight.

A second fire near the town of Landiras has forced authorities to evacuate 4,100 people this week. Authorities said that one flank has been brought under control by the dumping of white sand along a two-kilometer (1.2-mile) stretch. Another flank, however, remains unchecked.

People who were forced to flee shared worries about their abandoned homes with local media, and local officials organized special trips for some to fetch pets they had left behind in the rush to get to safety.

Overall, more than 100 square kilometers (40 square miles) of land have burned in the two fires.

Emergency officials warned that high temperatures and winds Sunday and Monday would complicate efforts to stop the fires from spreading further.

"We have to stay very prudent and very humble, because the day will be very hot. We have no favorable weather window," regional fire official Eric Florensan said Sunday on radio France-Bleu.

Some of the most worrisome blazes in Spain are concentrated in the western regions of Extremadura and Castilla y León. Images of plumes of dark smoke rising above wooded hills that have been baked under the sun have become common in several scarcely populated rural areas.

Drought conditions in the Iberian Peninsula have made it particularly susceptible to wildfires. Since last October, Spain has accumulated 25% less rainfall than is considered normal — and some areas have received as much as 75% less than normal, the National Security Department said.

While some fires have been caused by lightning strikes and others the result of human negligence, a blaze that broke out in a nature reserve in Extremadura called La Garganta de los Infiernos, or "The Throat of Hell," was suspected to be the result of arson, regional authorities said.

Firefighters have been unable to stop the advance of a fire that broke out near the city of Cáceres that is threatening the Monfragüe National Park and has kept 200 people from returning to their homes. Another fire in southern Spain near the city of Malaga has forced the evacuation of a further 2,500 people.

The office of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced that he will travel to Extremadura to visit some of the hardest-hit areas on Monday.

Hungary, Croatia and the Greek island of Crete have also fought wildfires this week, as have Morocco and California. Italy is in the midst of an early summer heat wave, coupled with the worst drought in its north in 70 years — conditions linked to a recent disaster, when a huge chunk of the Marmolada glacier broke loose, killing several hikers.

Scorching temperatures have even reached northern Europe. An annual four-day walking event in the Dutch city of Nijmegen announced Sunday that it would cancel the first day, scheduled for Tuesday, when temperatures are expected to peak at around 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit).

Britain's weather agency has issued its first-ever "red warning" of extreme heat for Monday and Tuesday, when temperatures in southern England may reach 40 C (104 F) for the first time.

College of Paramedics Chief Executive Tracy Nicholls warned Sunday that the "ferocious heat" could "ultimately, end in people's deaths." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/europe-...ain-wildfires/

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  • Heat wave kills more than 1,700 people in Spain and Portugal


Over 1,700 people have died in Spain and Portugal from heat-related causes over the past week as an unprecedented heat wave moves through Europe.

Driving the news: The ongoing heat wave could last a total of several weeks and has been accompanied by wildfires in France, Spain and Portugal, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes.


  • Severe heat waves are of particular concern in Europe as they can often prove extremely deadly due to air conditioning being less ubiquitous than in the U.S.
  • A complete death toll likely will not be available for weeks or more due to the difficulty in counting excess deaths in a heat event.


The big picture: According to Spain's Carlos III Institute there were 678 heat-related deaths in the country from July 10 to July 17.


  • Portugal's director-general of health told Reuters Tuesday that there were 1,063 heat-related deaths between July 7 and July 18.
  • The heat wave has now moved north into France and the U.K., where the temperatures are poised to break all-time national high-temperature records, creating life-threatening conditions for thousands of people.


What they're saying: "This heat wave has been well forecast for nearly a week, so the hope is that enough lead time will help limit the number of casualties — though, sadly, the toll is already quickly mounting," Steve Bowen, head of catastrophe insight for Aon, told Axios.


  • Bowen added that a "notable portion" of European homes are not equipped to handle such heat and that this "really enhances the concern and risk to the most vulnerable segments of the population, such as the elderly or the homeless."


Worth noting: Studies show that as the climate warms, the frequency of heat waves dramatically increases — as does the severity and longevity of such events, per Axios' Andrew Freedman.

Go deeper: Europe heat wave turns deadly as France and U.K. brace for hottest days on record

https://www.axios.com/2022/07/18/hea...ope-death-toll