Deadly “early summer” heat waves move across Europe while climatologists sound alarm ringtone

A burning heat wave in certain parts of Europe this week has been linked to half a dozen dead, fueled forest fires in Greece and Turkey and in pressure on the already stressed navigable channels on the continent.

On Thursday, more than 1,500 people were evacuated while the firefighters fought to control fires on the Greek island of Crete, while two farmers died after being trapped by flames in the Spanish region of Catalonia at the start of the week. In Türkiye, more than 50,000 people facing forest fires have been evacuated in the Western province of Izmir.

Temperatures have climbed above 40 ° C in certain regions this week – reaching up to 46 ° C in Spain and Portugal – while Europe is struggling with consecutive waves of heat.

Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead at the European Center for Medium Range Misher Prédisions, said that the June-July heat wave had revealed “millions of Europeans to high thermal stress”, noting that many across the continent had experienced “very high temperatures” since the beginning of June.

“Climate change makes heat waves more frequent, more intense and impacting larger geographic areas,” she said.

The high observed in June were more typical of the July and August weather, said Burgess. Spain and England reported its hottest June ever recorded, while it ranked second for France. Continental Portugal experienced a record daily temperature for June 46.6 ° C.

Michalis Diakakis, an expert in climate-related disasters at the University of Athens, said that Greece and the Southeast Mediterranean knew “heat and extreme drought conditions”.

This prolonged heat, followed by strong winds, had created the “perfect conditions” for forest fires such as those in Crete and Turkey, he added.

The fire in Crete broke out on Wednesday afternoon near the municipality of Ierapetra on Wednesday afternoon, with rapidly distributed flames powered by strong winds and dry conditions.

“In Crete in particular, northern winds very strong combined with the robust topography of the island, allow limited accessibility for fire fighting teams,” said Diakakis.

The “dramatic field”, in particular its steep gorges, “can cause fires to behave explosively”, which makes “confinement exceptionally difficult,” he added.

France and Switzerland were both forced to suspend or reduce activity in certain nuclear power plants this week as temperatures increased.

Most interior nuclear power plants are counting on rivers to cool the reactors and the fuel spent, heating the water in the process before putting it back in the sailors.

But with low river flows and already high temperatures, Paul Dorfman, president of the nuclear council group, said that the heated water discharge in the river risks significant damage to the ecology of the receptor river, killing vegetable and animal life in the process “.

“This is the main reason why some reactors were closed or powered during the heat wave,” he added.

The river flows through many European rivers, including the Rhine, Elbe and Seine, should be low during the summer months, at the back of a dry source and continuous hot weather.

S&P Global Ratings warned in a recent report that southern Europe was one of the most stressed by water in the world, claiming that urgent investment in infrastructure was necessary in Spain and Italy in particular.

The temperature of the surface waters of the Mediterranean sea had been exceptionally hot, reaching near the recordings, said Kostas Lagouvardos, research director of the National Observatory of Athens, although high winds in the northern Aegean Sea have helped maintain the temperatures of the sea in some parts of Greece.

Lagouvardos added: “Due to climate change, heat waves are increasingly affecting the European areas which generally benefit from softer weather conditions during the summer.”

During the global conference on shift points and the Exeter climate forum in the United Kingdom this week, involving hundreds of delegates from the main European and university scientific organizations, nearly 200 participants approved a statement calling for the action of political decision-makers “in particular the leaders meeting at the COP30 Climate summit later this year”.

Experts said that the increase in expectations that global warming, because pre-industrial times would exceed 1.5 ° C “in a few years”, because greenhouse gas emissions continued to increase meant that billions of people were in danger of climate switching points, or of the level to which irreversible changes in land systems are planned.

Ruth Engel, a scientist for extreme heat and environmental health at the WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, said that Europe should prepare for warmer temperatures, adding that extreme heat was “full -fledged”, as well as worsening the risk of forest fire, air pollution and the spread of certain diseases.

A “real challenge is to protect people where they really feel the heat-in their homes, their workplaces and their public spaces,” she said.

Climate capital

Where climate change meets business, markets and politics. Explore the FT coverage here.

Are you curious to know the commitments of the environmental sustainability of the FT? Learn more about our scientific targets here