Source: Fortune.com
Summary
France has recorded its hottest day ever, with temperatures reaching 29.8 C (85.6 F) on Tuesday. The heat wave has prompted the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre museum to restrict visiting hours, and has disrupted school and transportation schedules in multiple countries. The heat wave has also affected the United Kingdom and Spain, with weather agencies issuing red alerts about the risks of extreme heat for tens of millions of people.
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France’s heat wave has reached a “plateau of severity,” with unrelenting heat, day and night. The Eiffel Tower and the Louvre museum have closed early, and schools, public transportation, and sporting events have been affected. The heat wave has already been compared to the August 2003 heat wave that caused an estimated 15,000 deaths. Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, with temperatures increasing twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s. Human-caused climate change is tied to increasingly extreme weather, and U.N. climate agency projections say the next five years are likely to shatter more heat records.
Europe is getting hotter, and it’s not just a summer thing.
Author: Evan Null
