Extreme heat grips northern Europe

by time news

A Buckingham Palace guard sweats from high temperatures, which this Tuesday have broken the all-time record in the United Kingdom ap

In London, the 40 degree mark was exceeded this Tuesday, for the first time since these records were obtained.

That a good part of the Iberian Peninsula suffocates with the thermometer above 40 or even 47 degrees may seem typical of any summer. Even the images of the forest fires these days in Zamora or Portugal are not so anomalous, nor is the tragic loss of human life that can accompany them.

It is, on the other hand, that this scenario moves to European regions commonly described as ‘cool’, rainy or even a place of refuge for those who flee the heat for their summer vacations. Be it Galicia, in the Spanish case, or Brittany, in the French case, as well as London, West Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

josemi benítez

The French ‘canicule’ has put up to 64 municipalities on alert, mostly on the Atlantic coast as a whole, in each of which historical maximums have been registered, according to the French meteorological services warned on Tuesday. Among them, in the city of Nantes, with 40.3 degrees. In 73 of the 101 French departments, the second alert level applies; in 15 of the Atlantic coast it is already at the highest level.

In London, the 40 degree mark was exceeded this Tuesday, for the first time since these records are available. “The fire services are under immense pressure,” warned the mayor of the British capital, Sadiq Khan, through his Twitter account, after registering 40.2 degrees.

There are multiple fires in the capital, houses threatened and a mobilization of hundreds of members of the fire department, prepared to act in the face of what has been declared a “serious incident”.

The situation is an emergency, in a country and a city unaccustomed to these climatic conditions. While in the countries of southern Europe rail traffic has been cut off from time to time only in those sections exposed to forest fires, in the United Kingdom it has been interrupted in part of the country.

Trains have not run along the entire English east coast, while the British authorities ask the population to change their travel plans.

It is not a measure that is adopted “lightly”, sources from the railway network explained to the BBC. The company’s technicians must review the resistance capacity of its railway infrastructure under these temperatures. Not only were the plans of travelers by train affected, but also flights to or from London Luton airport were suspended or diverted due to damage to its runway.

The weather hits Germany again

From Germany, the Deutsche Bahn -the railway company- offers travelers the possibility of exchanging their ticket at no additional cost since Tuesday, given the forecasts that also point to record highs in the great Central European country. Peak temperatures were expected Tuesday through at least Thursday, beginning in the west and then moving east.

Among the regions most affected by the arrival of the ‘Hitzewelle’ -heat wave, in German- is North Rhine-Westphalia. That is to say, the populous ‘land’ of the west that exactly one year ago suffered, along with the neighboring Rhineland Palatinate, devastating floods that took away towns, bridges, roads and 185 human lives. Then, the climatic catastrophe took shape in the fury of overflowing rivers; now, in the forecast of exceeding the absolute national maximum, the 41.2 degrees registered in July 2019, in the Rhenish city of Duisburg.

In addition to the emergency situation in these theoretically ‘fresh’ areas -although they are becoming less so- in central or northern Europe, there are fires unleashed in the countries most prone to forest fires in southern Europe. In the Italian Tuscany, citizens of several towns have been evacuated, while in cities like Florence and Perugia suffocating days are lived.

Thousands of olive trees have burned on the island of Crete, in a context of 1,850 hectares of burning forest. Greece, a country that year after year suffers from the harassment of the flames, was a kind of oasis in this context, with temperatures that could be described as mild for the Hellenic summer -30 degrees. Towards the end of the week, a rise, although not dramatic, is expected in temperatures in Greece; relief is not expected for northern Europe until late next week.

“Increasingly common”

“Heat waves are becoming more common because of climate change,” said UN Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas from Geneva. For this organism, a “doping” effect has been produced in the atmosphere, as it is injected with more greenhouse gases than it can handle. Even if climate change stops, extreme heat waves will be common until at least 2060, Taalas warned.

Coinciding with the arrival of the ‘Hitzewelle’ in Germany, its Minister of Foreign Affairs, the green Annalena Baerbock, warned against any decision that implies putting the climate fight on hold, due to the imperative of other crises -such as the energy crisis, precipitated by the war of Ukraine-.

The fight against climate change “cannot be postponed”, he stated, in a speech before the so-called ‘Petersberg Dialogue’, which welcomes representatives from 40 countries and I consider preparatory for the Climate Conference -COP27- to be held in Egypt .

A report prepared on behalf of the Minister of Economy and Climate, the also green Robert Habeck, estimated that the climate crisis has caused damages of 80,000 million euros in the first European power, caused by floods or extreme heat.

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