'Unprecedented' alerts in France amid European heatwave

RTÉ News​

a day ago

A punishing heatwave has gripped southern Europe, prompting authorities to issue health and wildfire warnings as temperatures are expected to soar again.
France, Italy, Portugal and Spain have been sweltering for several days as the mercury climbed to 44C in some places.
Temperatures in southern Spain soared to 46C on Saturday, a new record for June, the national weather agency said this morning.
The mercury climbed to its new high in Huelva, near the border with Portugal, edging out the previous record, 45.2C that was set in 1965 in Seville, it said.
France's national weather agency has placed Paris and 15 other departments on its highest weather alert level.
Paris and the 15 other departments would move up to the red alert level, a warning last issued in August 2023, due to the severity of the temperatures, Meteo France said.
It said 68 other departments would remain on orange, the second highest alert level.
"This is unprecedented," Agner Pannier-Runacher, France's ecology transition minister said.
Only a small sliver of the country in the northwest was not sweltering, according to the Meteo France weather service, which said the heatwave was due to peak tomorrow and Wednesday.
The summer's first major heatwave has seen authorities in the countries along the Mediterranean's northern coast urging people to seek shelter.
Ambulances stood on standby near tourist hotspots as experts warned that such heatwaves, intensified by climate change, would become more frequent.
Firefighters were on standby after blazes broke out yesterday in France and Turkey, fed by the heat and strong winds.
Already last week, Greek firefighters had to battle a forest blaze on the coast south of Athens that forced some evacuations.
Spain's weather service AEMET said temperatures in Extremadura and Andalusia, in the south and southwest, had reached up to 44C yesterday.
In Madrid, where temperatures approached 40C, 32-year-old photographer Diego Radames told AFPTV: "I feel that the heat we're experiencing is not normal for this time of year.
"As the years go by, I have the feeling that Madrid is getting hotter and hotter, especially in the city centre," he added.
In Italy, 21 cities across the length of the country were on high alert for extreme heat, including Milan, Naples, Venice, Florence, Rome and Catania.
Hospital emergency departments across Italy have reported a 10% increase in heatstroke cases, according to Mario Guarino, vice president of the Italian Society of Emergency Medicine.
"It is mainly elderly people, cancer patients or homeless people, presenting with dehydration, heat stroke, fatigue," he said.
Several areas in the southern half of Portugal, including Lisbon, were under a red warning until tonight, said the Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA).
Two-thirds of Portugal was also on high alert for extreme heat and forest fires - as was the Italian island of Sicily, where firefighters tackled 15 blazes on Saturday.
Scientists say climate change is stoking hotter and more intense heatwaves, particularly in cities where the so-called "urban heat island" effect amplifies temperatures among tightly packed buildings.
"The heat waves in the Mediterranean region have become more frequent and more intense in recent years," said Emanuela Piervitali, a researcher at the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA).
"A further increase in temperature and heat extremes is expected in the future, so we will have to get used to temperatures with peaks even higher than those we are experiencing now," she said.
The heat is also attracting invasive species, which are thriving in the more tropical climes.
ISPRA launched a campaign this week urging fishermen and tourists alike to report sightings of four "potentially dangerous" venomous species.
The lionfish, silver-cheeked toadfish, dusky spinefoot and marbled spinefoot are beginning to appear in waters off southern Italy as the Mediterranean warms, it said.
In France, experts warned that the heat was also severely hitting biodiversity.
Meteorologist with the Irish Weather Channel Cathal Nolan attributed the soaring temperatures across Europe to a "heat dome" that is settling across the continent.
"The reason we're calling it a heat dome is where we have these large areas of high pressure, these anticyclones essentially act a like a lid on a pot, whereby the air is virtually trapped underneath. It sits for a couple of days or an extended period of time, and we see the temperatures building, day-on-day," he said.
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne, Mr Nolan said: "During these particular systems under the area of high pressure, the air descends. As it descends it's getting compressed and it's trapping down that very warm air across the surface. That's why we're seeing these particularly extreme temperatures at the moment."
He said the heat is not just located across the Iberian Peninsula, "it's up through many parts of France, where temperatures will push close to 40C today and even in through much of central Europe, and transferring across to the Balkans and later on towards Greece as well.
"Temperatures across these areas will certainly be up into the high 30s, and in some cases into the low 40s, as we go through today and indeed over the next couple of days," he added.