Europe is facing one of the hottest summers in recent years. Several countries on the continent have recorded record temperatures.
In the UK, thousands of people took to the beaches on Sunday to cool off heat that could hit 40 degrees this week, a historic record, with the country’s officially recorded highest temperature of 38.7 degrees Celsius in July 2019. National Weather Service, Bureau of Meteorology .
The high temperature is a challenge for the British, as few homes in the UK have air conditioners and buildings are built to retain heat.
The Bureau of Meteorology issued a red alert for tomorrow and Tuesday, advising people not to expose themselves to the sun between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Brighton, a seaside resort 76 kilometers from London, was packed over the weekend, with temperatures still in the mid-30s.
The past two weeks, specifically, have seen thermometers approach 40 degrees in countries such as France, Spain and Italy. Seville, in southern Spain, should register as low as 45 degrees Celsius.
Long heat waves and droughts are emerging as a climate phenomenon – compounded by global warming – that will hit large parts of Europe in the Northern Hemisphere summer.
Spain and Portugal have experienced the driest conditions in over a thousand years. Italy’s longest river, the Po, is at its lowest level in 70 years, while parts of the Rhine, the most important waterway in Western Europe, have not experienced such lows in more than 15 years.
Crops wither and power plants are shutting down, threatening an already hyperinflated region with the potential to further soar in food and energy prices.
