AS THE RAIN pelts down in Ireland, the thought of a hot summer’s day in southern Europe might sound very tempting.
“Give me 40 degrees over rain any day,” is something Peter Thorne, a climatologist at Maynooth University, has overheard people say.
In short, Thorne tells The Journal that this kind of extreme heat is “fundamentally unhealthy”.
But elsewhere on the fastest warming continent, the record high European temperature of 48.8C could be broken this week.
Wildfires in Greece have today forced the evacuation of 1,200 children close to a seaside resort, while highs of 48 degrees are forecast on Italy’s islands of Sicily and Sardinia.
North America and Asia are also experiencing oppressive heats, with China reporting a new high for mid-July of 52.2 degrees.
“We are now witnessing events that would have been impossible in a world where we had not emitted all these heat-trapping greenhouse gases,” warns Thorne.
“Increasingly, those are being found in heat extremes,” he adds.
“The World Meteorological Office just yesterday confirmed the new European all-time heat record was set last in Sicily in 2021 and there’s a real risk that it will be broken again in this current week.”
The rain in Ireland can lead to some people questioning where “all this climate change is”.
“We’re always seeing in Ireland, and to an extent in the UK, people saying ‘what climate change?’ because we happen to be on the down part of the Helter Skelter,” said Thorne.
“We’re not seeing what they think is the ‘nice weather’, but how quickly we forget we had that real warmth and sunshine in May and June.”
“We happen now to be on the other side of that,” notes Thorne.
“It can’t be record-hot, everywhere, all the time. That’s not how weather works, that’s not how climate change will work.
“Just because my back garden is currently experiencing rain doesn’t mean that there aren’t parts of the world that are having very, very significant impacts from climate change.”
Thorne adds that precipitation extremes, such as those currently being seen, are “becoming more extreme in Ireland and those are another indelible fingerprint of climate change”.
“People who are saying, ‘oh, give me 40 degrees over rain any day,’ if you did actually give them 40 degrees they’d have a very different perspective on what 40 degrees means,” remarks Thorne.
“Forty degrees makes it uncomfortable just to sit or lie down, let alone to do anything meaningful.
“Forty degrees means you need active artificial cooling to have any kind of comfort at all.”
Thorne describes living in climates with temperatures in excess of 40 degrees as a “whole different experience”.
“You get used to such temperatures to an extent, but the human body needs to self-regulate to keep at about 38 degrees centigrade.
“That’s why when it’s cold outside, you shiver to create body heat, it’s why even on a warm Irish day, particularly if you’re undertaking physical exertion, you sweat.
“But once the air temperature gets above 38 degrees it becomes very hard, particularly if the humidity gets high, to self-regulate.
“The fundamental ability for your body to regulate its temperature and therefore for your body to function and stay alive at the extreme end becomes increasingly challenging at these kinds of temperatures.”
Thorne adds that nighttime temperatures are also an issue in southern Europe.
“It’s not just how hot it is during the day, because what’s key is the human body’s ability to cool down and recover overnight.
“Some of the nighttime lows they’re seeing in the Mediterranean region of Europe at the moment are in excess of 30 degrees, your body simply does not recover.
“The effects on the elderly and the very, very young can be deadly.”
Thorne points to a study that came out this week which said last year’s European heatwave accounted for 61,000 excess deaths.
“Don’t be surprised if the number from this heatwave is going to be anywhere other than north of that number,” warned Thorne.
Thorne also notes that people living in such climates have to “change absolutely” their working day.
“You work early, you work late. The Spanish siesta is not just a meme, it’s actually an adaptation to the very peak heat in the middle of the day in summer in the Iberian Peninsula and it’s similar in many other parts of the world.
“In the past I’ve worked in Australia, and a few times we were in places where you work from sunrise for two or three hours, and then you work in the two or three hours before sun down, and you do nothing in between.”
Thorne also warned that such extreme heat could impact global food supplies.
“We don’t necessarily see it as much here in Ireland, we’re protected to an extent by the EU single market and by EU policies,” said Thorne.
“But if you talk to people in the global south, food shortages are becoming almost a perennial problem.”
Thorne said the current heat waves are “hitting the great breadbaskets and food producing regions of the world that provide us staples”.
“This isn’t your ‘nice to have foods,’ but your fundamental food types, such as wheat and barley and rice, the things that fundamentally sustain us as a global society.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say