Europe Baked in 'Extreme Heat Stress' Pushing Temperatures To Record Highs (theguardian.com) 22
Scorching weather has baked Europe in more days of "extreme heat stress" than its scientists have ever seen. The Guardian: Heat-trapping pollutants that clog the atmosphere helped push temperatures in Europe last year to the highest or second-highest levels ever recorded, according to the EU's Earth-watching service Copernicus and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Europeans are suffering with unprecedented heat during the day and are stressed by uncomfortable warmth at night. The death rate from hot weather has risen 30% in Europe in two decades, the joint State of the Climate report from the two organisations found.
"The cost of climate action may seem high," said WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo, "but the cost of inaction is much higher." The report found that temperatures across Europe were above average for 11 months of 2023, including the warmest September since records began. The hot and dry weather fuelled large fires that ravaged villages and spewed smoke that choked far-off cities. The blazes that firefighters battled were particularly fierce in drought-stricken southern countries such as Portugal, Spain and Italy. Greece was hit by the largest wildfire recorded in the EU, which burned 96,000 hectares of land, according to the report. Heavy rain also led to deadly floods. Europe was about 7% wetter in 2023 than the average over the last three decades, the report found, and one-third of its river network crossed the "high" flood threshold. One-sixth hit "severe" levels.
"The cost of climate action may seem high," said WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo, "but the cost of inaction is much higher." The report found that temperatures across Europe were above average for 11 months of 2023, including the warmest September since records began. The hot and dry weather fuelled large fires that ravaged villages and spewed smoke that choked far-off cities. The blazes that firefighters battled were particularly fierce in drought-stricken southern countries such as Portugal, Spain and Italy. Greece was hit by the largest wildfire recorded in the EU, which burned 96,000 hectares of land, according to the report. Heavy rain also led to deadly floods. Europe was about 7% wetter in 2023 than the average over the last three decades, the report found, and one-third of its river network crossed the "high" flood threshold. One-sixth hit "severe" levels.
Adjectives Assemble! (Score:3)
Scorching weather! Baked Europe! Extreme! Ravaged villages! Choked! Fierce! Drought-stricken! Deadly floods!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds about right (Score:2)
It's coming for the Tropics and the US (Score:2)
Looks pretty hot everywhere.
Tropics (equatoral):
https://www.miragenews.com/unp... [miragenews.com]
US:
https://www.foxweather.com/wea... [foxweather.com]
The ocean is still at record heat levels as well:
https://climatereanalyzer.org/... [climatereanalyzer.org]
Ugh. It was a very nice day today, to be appreciated.
Re: (Score:2)
It's coming for those who cant afford to buy their way out of the problem, the wealthy with the power to actually fix it have no desire to fix it since it doesn't affect them.. Until its far to late.
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Air Conditioning (Score:2)
Too bad the Europeans have a thing against AC.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah that's the real root of the problem, here.
Re: Air Conditioning (Score:1)
Sure is, we have mitigated climate related deaths everywhere in the world. Mostly cold was the culprit in the past but also heat is no longer a concern for most of the world.
Re: (Score:2)
That's very glib. But it is clearly obvious that air conditioning could mitigate the effects of heat on the sensitive. I note that your "heat wave" is normal temperatures for most of the USA, we don't have people keeling over dead on New Orleans/Houston streets every July.
Having air conditioning would definitely reduce the death count and is a practical solution that can be implemented right now, for relatively cheap. But you apparently want to wait around for a perfect solution in the indefinite future (
Remember (Score:1, Troll)
Remember folks, every time they say "since records began" they are talking about a period from the mid 1940s, so about 80 years, total. Human urban civilisation is maybe 7000 years old. There are cities which have been continually inhabited for *thousands* of years. Rome (about 2700 years) and London (about 2000 years) are *latecomers*! Cities such as Damascus and Benares have been inhabited for thousand of years more than that. And these panic mongers want you to think and vote and allocate *your* m
Climate Doom (Score:2, Troll)
Another week, another climate doom article on /.
Climate change is now so political, and the financial incentives so perverse (grant money depends on you supporting the narrative) that I doubt anyone can know the truth anymore.
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In Europe, "since records began" refers to late 19th Century. The meteorological service of the Paris observatory was founded 1854; it launches meteorological balloons since 1898, and started broadcasting 3 daily bulletins from by the Eiffel tower radio emitter in 1922. Their archive http://archivesmeteo.fr/ [archivesmeteo.fr] shows that big cities have basic observations from the 1850s and exhaustive data since 1890s (it's just disappointingly telling data is paper kept in some library and you need to go there).
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Usually when talking about global climate the "since records began" claim means since we had somewhat reliable *global* records, not just Europe. That means since the mid 1940s. For really reliable data we have proxy records (full of inconvenient facts best ignored apparently) and, recently satellite data (too new for any but the most recent and short term comparisons).
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Not reading the article is a Slashdot meme. You didn't even bother to read the first word of the article title before dashing off something silly.
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Err....I did. The first word of the article is "Scorching". What is the deep meaning that I am supposed not to have noticed? This article is all about a few examples of hot weather over a period of just a few decades. It also makes claims such as "the largest wildfire recorded in the EU". Obviously very bad but how old is the EU? It was created in 1993. 1993. Only 31 years ago. This "record" of the largest wildfire is not a real record. It is an event in a context of only 31 years! But the originatin
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This is about the temperature observation in Europe, from the moment Europeans started recording reliable data, about 150 years ago. Other parts of the world are not the question here. Ancient Chinese chronicles have rainfall observations for thousands of years https://www.jstor.org/stable/2... [jstor.org] .
Re: (Score:2)
It's amazing that when it comes to stating simple, verifiable and non-contentious facts about the longevity of human urban civilisation, the recency and very limited nature of modern global climate data, that the proxy records show much warmer and much cooler periods *during* our civilised period as a species, the result on slashdot is *always* to be moderated down as troll and flamebait. Sometimes there is also verbal abuse, ridicule, even threats. So far I've got off lightly this time. Interesting deba