Europe burns, Heat wave sows chaos on the Old Continent.
The scientific community warns that it is not a passing phenomenon, the specific reasons are multiple, but it has a lot to do with climate change. Learn more here.
Hello friends, I hope you are very well. A tragedy is what is happening in Europe today, as a terrible heat wave ravages much of the continent. A cruel reminder that all the damage done to the planet, we will all pay for it, sooner or later.
The image above is of a firefighter faced with the immense task of containing forest fires in the Gironde region of southwest France, but it is not only there, Spain, Greece, Portugal and more are experiencing forest fires the likes of which have not been seen in generations. In Greece, for example, by Saturday, 71 forest fires had already been reported in a 24-hour period.
But it is not only the flames that bring destruction to Europe, the temperatures that in some regions have reached 43 degrees Celsius are killing people, only in Portugal, for Saturday the government announced 659 deaths only in that week due to high temperatures. In Spain for the same day 360 deaths were counted as a result of the heat wave, most of them elderly people.
Not even old London has been able to escape the tragedy, in the center of the city there are reports of fires and infrastructure failures due to the intense heat. Desperate citizens are trying to cool down.
This region has been facing a severe drought in recent months, since the beginning of the year and until May the Mediterranean suffered a similar heat wave.
Today, the heat wave and the resulting drought is spreading north to regions of central and even eastern Europe, for example, the Rhine river, which separates Germany from eastern Europe, is at an all-time low, with only 71 centimeters of water at its narrowest point.
For comparison, a photo of the same Rhine River in 1945, during World War II.
And although it is still difficult to quantify the consequences, there are things that can be expected, not only the overloading of health systems and energy consumption, the latter already compensated by the war in Ukraine. But also a loss of crops, which adds to the global food price crisis, transport failures, as for example the Rhine river has served for centuries to transport all kinds of goods across Europe.
Europe is simply not designed to withstand such heat, some airports are already closing as their runways' integrity is compromised due to the heat melting the asphalt, and railways are no longer safe as the deformation of the rails due to the heat has reached a point where they can derail a train.
The world was not doing well, and now this. But... why exactly?
Well, there are a series of climatic phenomena, that although they occur cyclically every year, today are enhanced due to climate change, for example, the wind currents of the upper atmosphere have a system similar to that of ocean currents, currently, a region of atmospheric low off the coast of Portugal is bringing warm air from North Africa to Europe.
Due to the droughts in May, there was not as much moisture in the soils to help cool them by evaporation, and as the arctic shrinks and warms, fewer cold air currents from the north make summers hotter.
All of these phenomena are possible, and exacerbated, because of rising temperatures due to greenhouse gases.
It is even believed that Atlantic currents are influencing further warming of coastal regions of Europe.
With all this, a panel of UK scientists warns that this phenomenon will now become a common occurrence approximately every 3 years, when weather, hydrological and climatic conditions coincide. So Europe must prepare for heat waves like this in the near future.
And obviously, the call is to the international community to cut greenhouse gas emissions IMMEDIATELY, as we are on the brink of a global catastrophe with no point of no return.....
Conclusion.
Now the first world is also a victim of climate change, and still nothing significant is happening, moreover, there are still people who deny its impact and block measures aimed at trying to remedy the situation. As I said before, all this seems to me a tragedy. But perhaps some good will come out of it. Perhaps, now that all of Europe is declaring an emergency situation, measures will begin to be taken from where the world is controlled to remedy the situation. For we are ALL at risk from climate change.
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[2] spain portugal battle wildfrires heatwaves scorch southern europe