Temperatures exceeded 35°C across France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom on Aug 13 as a heatwave intensified across Europe, with weather agencies forecasting that more than 135 million people in several European countries would be exposed to such heat.
Heatwave hits France, Italy, Spain and UK with temperatures above 35°C
Temperatures exceeded 35°C across France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom on Aug 13 as a heatwave intensified across Europe, with weather agencies forecasting that more than 135 million people in several European countries would be exposed to such heat.
In London, the temperature reached 38.1°C at Kew Gardens, which the Met Office — the UK's official weather agency — said made Aug 13 the fifth-hottest day on record for the country. The Met Office said on Aug 11 that the UK was on track to record its hottest ever summer. Temperatures of 36°C or higher were recorded in 40 locations across central and southern England.
France Meteo recorded 38°C in Paris, and much of France was placed on heatwave alert. In Italy, similar temperatures were forecast to affect 29 million inhabitants, particularly along the west coast, in the Po Valley, the heel of the Italian peninsula, and on the islands. Spain's Aemet weather agency recorded temperatures as high as 37°C in the centre of the country on Aug 13, with 25 million people across the Iberian Peninsula projected to be affected.
An analysis by AFP, based on German weather service Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) forecasts and 2025 population projections from the Joint Research Centre, estimated that temperatures would exceed 30°C for nearly three out of five European residents — approximately 340 million people, excluding Turkey. AFP said its methodology was consistent with that of Austrian NGO Klimadashboard. AFP noted that the DWD model has a resolution of approximately 6.5 km and therefore does not fully capture urban heat-island effects, meaning the analysis likely underestimates the number of people affected in densely populated urban areas, according to Klimadashboard's David Jablonski.
Europe is described in the source as the planet's fastest-warming continent. Scientists, according to the source, attribute increasingly frequent and intense heatwaves to human-caused climate change. Repeated heatwaves and drought have contributed to a historically hot summer of wildfires and to the deaths of thousands of people so far this season, the source states.
- The source does not state the total number of deaths attributed to the current heatwave specifically, only that thousands of people have died across the summer so far.
- The source does not identify which scientific body or study is the basis for the claim that Europe is the planet's fastest-warming continent.
- The source does not state which wildfires are referred to or where they occurred.
- The source does not state what measures, if any, governments in the affected countries have announced in response to the Aug 13 heatwave.
- The source does not specify how the Met Office defines a record for hottest-ever summer or what comparison period is used.
Read the original at The Straits Times