A young man cools his face in a public fountain on these hot days, July 11, 2023 in Tempio Pausania, Sardinia, Italy. The record for the best temperature in European history was broken in August 2021, when 48.8°C was recorded in Floridia, a city within the Italian Sicilian province of Syracuse.
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Europe is experiencing an intense and prolonged heatwave, with meteorologists warning that temperatures in Italy could soon exceed 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.84 Fahrenheit) – the best temperature recorded in European history.
An anticyclone often called Cerberus, named after the three-headed monster that features in Dante’s Inferno, is predicted to send temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius to parts of Spain, France, Greece, Croatia and Turkey in the approaching days.
Meanwhile, in Italy, temperatures could soon reach as high as 48 degrees Celsius in Sardinia and Sicily. A red warning has been issued for 10 cities across the country, including Rome, Florence and Bologna.
The very best temperature ever recorded in Europe was 48.8 degrees near the traditional city of Syracuse on the coast of Sicily in August 2021. Scientists from the European Space Agency he said this record could also be broken again in the approaching days.
Meanwhile, the Italian Meteorological Society (SMI) told CNBC that it just isn’t yet possible to predict whether Europe’s temperature record will soon be matched or surpassed.
Nonetheless, the SMI warned that “the wide-scale meteorological set-up is kind of much like that which produced an exceptional 48.8°C in Sicily on August 11, 2021,” and the Cerberus heatwave is predicted to accentuate in southern Italy in the approaching days .
Scientists say global warming greatly increases the likelihood of heatwaves just like the one currently affecting countries across Europe.
Several people take shelter from the warmth under umbrellas on July 12, 2023 in Murcia, Murcia region, Spain.
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It comes shortly after the planet recorded its hottest day since records began for the third time in only 4 days.
Climate scientists are deeply concerned in regards to the recent spate of world heat records, highlighting the urgent need to cut back greenhouse gas emissions fueling the climate crisis.
“The warmth puts pressure on society as a complete and comes with cascading threats,” Chloe Brimicombe, a climatologist at Austria’s University of Graz, told CNBC via email.
“This includes energy and health networks under pressure, trains having to run slower or roads melting in some regions, potential crop yield declines, livestock health issues and retail production. Essentially the most vulnerable in society are those that are most unjustly affected.”
“Alarm bells for decision makers”
Earlier this week, scientists found that greater than 61,000 people died in Europe because of this of the heatwave last 12 months. The summer of 2022 belonged to Europe the most popular ever and was characterised by a punitive streak of record heatwaves.
Test, published Monday in Nature Medicinesaid Italy had probably the most heat-related deaths between May 30 and September 4 last 12 months (18,010), while Spain had 11,324 and Germany 8,173.
The Cerberus heatwave has sparked fears that the present period of utmost heat could cause many more deaths this summer.
“The increased frequency of utmost heat waves and other extreme weather events must be a wake-up call to policymakers in Europe, as in the remaining of the world, of the urgent must step up climate motion,” Simone Tagliapietra, senior fellow at Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, told CNBC for via e-mail.
“Such events can have serious economic and social consequences. For instance, they can affect the energy system, putting severe pressure on the electricity grid because of higher demand for electricity for conditioning, supply-side problems resembling reduced hydropower generation, added Tagliapietra.