A new heatwave hits Europe

For the second time in less than one month, Europe is witnessing a widespread and intense heatwave, with many new maximum and minimum temperature records, disruption to transport and infrastructure and stress on people’s health and the environment.

Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands saw new national temperature records, as temperatures passed the 40° Celsius mark. In France, Paris recorded its hottest day on record, with a provisional temperatures of 42.6 °C at 1630, an unprecedented value since the beginning of measurements. The United Kingdom saw its hottest July day on record on 25 July.

National meteorological and hydrological services have issued heat alerts – including the top-level red alert – and, in some areas, fire warnings to minimize the risk to life and the environment.

The July heatwave follows an unusually early and exceptionally intense heatwave in June, which set new temperature records in Europe and ensured that the month of June was the hottest on record for the continent, with the average temperature of 2° Celsius above normal.

June was also the warmest June on record globally, with severe wildfires in the Arctic.

“Such intense and widespread heatwaves carry the signature of man-made climate change. This is consistent with the scientific finding showing evidence of more frequent, drawn-out and intense heat events as greenhouse gas concentrations lead to a rise in global temperatures,” according to Johannes Cullmann, Director of WMO’s Climate and Water Department.

“WMO expects that 2019 will be in the five top warmest years on record and that 2015-2019 is to be the warmest of any equivalent five-year period on record,” he said.

Many scientific studies have been conducted on the links between climate change and heatwaves.

Every heatwave occurring in Europe today is made more likely and more intense by human-induced climate change. The observations show a very large increase in the temperature of these heatwaves. Currently such an event is estimated to occur with a return period of 30 years, but similarly, frequent heatwaves would have likely been about 4 ºC cooler a century ago. In other words, a heatwave that intense is occurring at least 10 times more frequently today than a century ago.

The new absolute record for Paris was recorded at the centennial weather station in Paris-Monsouris, and broke the previous record dating back to 28 July 1947 with 40.4 °C. France set a new national temperature record of 46°C during the last heatwave on 28 June.

The European heatwave follows an intense heatwave on the US East Coast 20-21 July, which saw many records broken. National meteorological and hydrological services in Europe work closely with national and local authorities on heat-health action plans to protect lives.

The heatwave in Europe follows extreme heat episodes in Australia, India, Pakistan and parts of the Middle East in 2019. More are expected to follow during this northern hemisphere summer.

Original source: WMO
Published on 25 July 2019