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Chapter 1: What are the current temperature records being set in the UK?
This is The Guardian.
Temperatures across the world are once again breaking records. In the UK this week, we're expecting to have the hottest June day ever.
An intense heatwave will be developing this week affecting many parts of the UK and the UK Met Office has now issued a very rare red weather warning for extreme heat on Wednesday and Thursday.
All parts of Italy, France and Spain are facing heatwave conditions this weekend. Temperatures in northern and central regions are forecast to reach 40 plus degrees Celsius. France placed about a third of the country on red alert, banned drinking alcohol in public in some areas, and ordered 845 schools to close Monday.
And this extraordinary heat might be just the beginning of a sweltering year ahead.
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Chapter 2: How does the El Niño phenomenon relate to the current heatwave?
The latest El Niño climate event is coming our way, and some scientists have nicknamed it Godzilla. But why exactly is it so hot? Could El Niño make it even worse? And how can we adapt to this new normal? I'm The Guardian's science editor, Ian Sample, and this is Science Weekly. Ajit Naranjan, you're The Guardian's Europe Environment Correspondent.
We're just heading into what is set to be an extreme heatwave across Europe. What are we likely to see?
Chapter 3: What causes the extreme heat we're experiencing?
So the UK is set to come close to its all-time record of 40 degrees Celsius this week. So temperatures will likely go as high as kind of 38, 39 degrees C. Parts of France are expected to hit temperatures even as high as 42. Spain may even surpass that. Now, all of this is kind of quite striking, partly because, A, of just how hot northern Europe has really become.
If you think about Spain and France, maybe you're more used to these sorts of temperatures. The UK really is just not. So I think the temperature record for June is just 35.6 degrees Celsius, which is a full two to three degrees lower than what we're about to see this week.
Now, because it's so humid, scientists expect that this heat is going to feel even more oppressive than it otherwise would be.
Chapter 4: Why are heatwaves becoming more frequent and intense?
And so that'll come with these... tropical nights and that's when the minimum temperatures don't drop below 20 degrees Celsius and that means you can't even properly recover from the stress of the day. What is behind this heat wave then? What's causing it? So the immediate cause of this is what's called a heat dome.
So this massive area of high pressure, it's sitting over the UK and Western Europe and I saw one scientist describe it this morning as an atmospheric lid that's suppressing cloud formation and allowing this relentless sunshine to just bake the ground day after day after day. Now, why do these heat waves keep getting hotter?
Chapter 5: Is the current heatwave in the UK linked to global climate changes?
Both I and probably every single climate scientist you ever speak to will sound like a broken record here. It is because we burn fossil fuels that spew gas that trap sunlight and heat the planet. So temperatures at a global average level have increased by about 1.3 degrees Celsius since the industrial revolution, and they are predicted to just keep getting hotter and hotter.
Ajit, you've been writing about what some people are calling the Godzilla El Nino, this global climate phenomenon where temperatures in many parts of the world are pushed up alongside extreme events like droughts and rain. Is this the start of the El Nino?
So El Nino is just beginning to form in the Pacific Ocean. We're just seeing the first signs that meteorological agencies are calling it as El Nino. having returned after a few years without it. It is only expected to reach its full strength toward the end of the year and then last over into 2027.
Chapter 6: What impacts do extreme heat events have on health?
So this heat wave is essentially unrelated to anything going on over there. But the projections are that it may well be a very strong one when it peaks. And the World Meteorological Organization has cautioned that it's still a bit too early to call the strength of it. So they've kind of thrown a little bit of cold water on the projections, calling it a super El Nino or Godzilla El Nino.
But that is largely because the models that they're showing still show a fairly wide range of what could happen. If you look at kind of the average of where those models are ending up, it does seem like it could be in the moderate to strong category. And all of that together makes it pretty likely that next year will end up being the hottest year on record globally.
And for the heat waves that we're experiencing, that means that each one will just be pushed that extra bit hotter. In terms of the other effects that an El Nino year brings, in many ways, they're coming at the worst possible time.
Chapter 7: How can society prepare for future heatwaves?
So the Iran war has led to huge spikes in energy prices. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz means that there's less fertilizer getting out. And then coupled with things like inflation or the rest of it,
You end up with this quite toxic mix of different factors that basically mean a lot of people who are worried about food security have started to say, hey, this is actually a kind of a looming disaster. And if we don't act now to avert a crisis, then we are going to see these kind of very, very heavy knock-on effects hit.
Ajit, as you mentioned, in the UK, we're set to beat previous temperature records set for June by about two degrees. I think that was set 50 years ago in 1976. But we're seeing more and more heat waves driven by the climate crisis. Are Europe and the UK becoming 40-degree countries?
Chapter 8: What individual actions can help us cope with extreme heat?
Essentially, yes. I mean, I think the 40-degree temperature mark was crossed in the UK for the first time in 2022. This year and the following year are very likely to be years in which more records fall, more records are broken. Partly, as we just said, as a result of the El Nino, that will boost global temperatures a bit further next year.
What's interesting in the UK's case is that, I mean, I think none of us would imagine 40 degrees, even just 10 years ago, 15 years ago, These sorts of temperatures were not things that people were discussing. I think in my case, when it goes above 25 degrees, I feel a bit too hot. I don't know if Ian, from your childhood, you remember anything even vaguely approaching a 40 degree heat wave.
And we're not even at the July, August stage where things usually tend to be the worst. But it's always worth mentioning that from the perspective of today, we can look back and think, gosh, I didn't remember that when I was young. And now it seems to be happening more and more. When we're old, we're going to look back at some of these heat waves and think, oh, that was actually quite cool, yeah.
What kinds of impacts do heat waves like this have? Let's start with health impacts.
So the thing about heat waves is that they basically stress the body. All your organs start to have to work harder, your heart's pumping blood faster, your body's struggling to deal with all the different processes that it kind of completes on a regular day-to-day basis.
And what happens is when you get this high level of heat, people often think about it as, oh gosh, that means that I'm going to be out in the sun, I'm not going to have drunk enough water, and I might get knocked down by heat stroke. That is a risk, and particularly if you're homeless, if you're working a job that requires you being outdoors.
then you are definitely at quite a high risk of stuff like that happening. But what people maybe fail to grasp is that the bulk of the deaths that happen, and we're talking tens of thousands across Europe on a typical summer, the bulk of these deaths are happening out of sight. Perhaps a grandparent, perhaps an older relative, perhaps a neighbour.
People, particularly with pre-existing health conditions, are basically just being stressed that little bit further to an extent that pushes them over the edge. Maybe you could cynically say some of these deaths would have happened anyway. Can you really blame it on the heat wave? In a lot of cases, these are people who were not expected to die within the following six months or so.
So it is a considerable amount of life that is being lost as a result of these heat waves. And it extends down to young and fit and healthy people as well. And one thing we mentioned earlier, the kind of tropical nights that we're now having.
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