The United Kingdom is preparing today for the hottest day in its history with maximum temperatures of up to 41ºC in the south of the islands. The Met Office, Britain’s weather service, has issued a red alert, the first such warning in the country due to exceptional heat. Remember that its current record was 38.7°C, which was reached in Cambridge in July 2019. Now London is poised to be one of the hottest places in the world.
But virtually all of Europe is suffering from extreme weather. The south and center of the continent have experienced a brutal heat wave with temperatures reaching 44ºC in Spain and 41ºC in France. An implacable wave that challenges our lives every time, since dozens of heat records were broken in some cities, where key sectors were affected and emergency services faced dozens of wildfires and heat deaths.
While this heatwave probably won’t set new records for the highest temperature in countries in general (not counting the UK, which will), it’s a good time to remember what the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe have been. . This map designed by Viborc collects all the heat records in history on the continent.
You can see the map in its maximum resolution here.
According to the WMO, the highest temperature ever recorded in Europe had been 48.0°C in Greece (Athens) on July 10, 1977. However, a new European record was set on August 11, 2021 in Sicily, Italy, during a heat wave that hit the country, and 48.8°C was reached. The map also shows the temperature of 49°C recorded in Turkey, even though it happened in the Asian part of the country.
The south takes the cake. Spain reached a new temperature record on August 14, 2021, of 47.4°C. And Portugal (47.4 °C) and France (46°C) they are not spared, while all the Benelux countries also have their all-time highs above 40 degrees, from 41.8°C in Belgium to 40.7 in the Netherlands. Germany has 41.2°C as the maximum registered, only 0.3°C less than Switzerland (of 41.5°C).
If we look specifically at our country, these are the highest temperatures recorded in each province of Spain.
Even the Balkan countries have had insufferable seasons. Bosnia and Herzegovina leads the region with its record set in July 1901 at 46.2°C. North Macedonia is second with 45.7°C, followed by the Bulgarian record of 45.2°C. Being at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, Croatia has a national record of 42.8°C, recorded in 1981. And strange as it may sound, Russia has a maximum of 45.4°C.
Iceland has the lowest record in Europe, with a historical maximum reaching 30.5°C, that is, 17.5°C colder than the record for Greece. Sweden, on the other hand, did reach 38°C on two occasions. Due to the effects of the Atlantic Ocean and the mild climate, Ireland’s record high is 33.3°C, making it the second country in Europe (after Iceland) with the highest recorded temperature not exceeding 35° c.
Dozens of studies that we have discussed in Xataka over the years have shown that human-induced climate change has increased the number of extreme weather events. Not only that: also its duration and intensity. European heat waves, for example, have increased in pace three to four times faster than in other parts of the Northern Hemisphere, according to a recent study. Suffice it to say that the global average temperature has risen by almost 1.2°C since the last century.
And it should be mentioned that many of these studies defend the idea that certain extreme heat waves would not have been possible without climate change caused by man. “The chances of seeing 40°C days in the UK could be up to 10 times more likely in the current climate than in a natural climate unaffected by human influence,” Nikos Christidis, climate scientist at the Met Office, explained in an email. a recent statement. Yes, we are facing something very serious, you just have to go outside or open the windows to realize it.
Map: Viborc