Tourists on holiday across Europe are bracing themselves this week for a relentless heat wave that will blanket parts of Italy and Spain with sweltering temperatures of up to 48 degrees Celsius.
A Sahara desert anticyclone called Cerberus is set to soar temperatures above 40C this week in countries across the Mediterranean, prompting officials to issue heat warnings about the potentially life-threatening risk of such excessive heat .
British tourists traveling to the Italian islands of Sardinia and Sicily are predicted to bear the brunt of the debilitating heat, with temperatures set to reach a near record-breaking 48C.
This blistering heat means the Mediterranean is approaching its hottest temperatures on record. The previous record of 48.8C was recorded on August 11, 2021 in the Sicilian city of Floridia.
“We know there will be temperatures above 40C or 45C,” said Professor Luca Mercalli, the president of the Italian Meteorological Society. The protector. “We could come close to the record. Anyway, the level will be very high.’
The relentless heat wave is already sweeping across holiday hotspots across southern Europe, with temperatures predicted to rise to 45C in southern Spain and 44C in Greece this week.
Tourists on holiday across Europe are bracing this week for a relentless heat wave that will blanket parts of Italy and Spain with sweltering temperatures of up to 48 degrees Celsius
A woman cools off while soaking in the sea during a heat wave in Naples, Italy, on Monday
People cool off in the jets of water from the urban beach of Madrid Rio in Madrid, Spain, on July 9
Tourists enjoy the sun on the beach of Santa Giulia, near Porto Vecchio, in the French Mediterranean island of Corsica, on July 9
Temperatures will rise to 42C in Cyprus, 38C in Croatia and those in France will bask in 37C heat by the end of this week.
The intense heat is expected to last for about two weeks across the Mediterranean, meteorologists say.
Italy will be hardest hit by the heat wave, with Sardinia and Sicily expected to endure temperatures of 48°C. Officials yesterday began issuing warnings for nine main mainland cities – Bolzano, Florence, Frosinone, Palermo, Perugia, Rieti, Rome, Turin and Viterbo – as Italians and holidaymakers prepare for the attack.
It will be Italy’s first heat wave of the year – months after Italians weathered storms, avalanches and floods that killed dozens of people.
The Italian meteorologist Stefano Rossi said so La Stampa that it is no coincidence that the anticyclone is named after the three-headed dog Cerberus who guards the gates of the underworld in Greek mythology.
“Metaphorically, the three headings indicate the three main climatic zones into which Italy will be divided,” said Rossi. He added that humidity will “soar sky high” across Italy and that nighttime temperatures will not fall below 22C.
In Rome and Florence – major hotspots for British tourists – temperatures can reach a blistering 38C.
Meteorologists also think that tomorrow’s temperature could rise to 48 degrees in Sardinia and 45 degrees in Sicily.
A boy dives into the water at Agios Sostis beach on Serifos Island on July 4. Greece has been hit by another heat wave this week
People walk along the waterfront of Thessaloniki, northern Greece on July 11 during the debilitating heat wave
A man cools off at a fountain during a heat wave in Seville on July 10
Women cool off while soaking in the sea on Monday during a heat wave across Italy, in Naples, Italy
The heat wave stemmed from an anticyclone in the Sahara Desert and has since begun to spread from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia into southern Europe.
In Spain, the tourist hotspots of Granada and Cordoba in the south will see temperatures rise to 44°C and 45°C respectively in the coming days, with officials issuing heat warnings to locals and tourists.
The heat wave will also bring temperatures of up to 43 ° C to Mallorca on Tuesday.
The Red Cross has urged people to monitor the most vulnerable, such as children and the elderly, during the high temperatures, while also urging people to stay hydrated and watch for signs of overheating, including vomiting and fainting.
Sweltering temperatures were also expected to hit Greece this week, with a 44-degree heat wave hitting the northern city of Larissa. In Athens, the National Observatory predicted that the city could reach temperatures of 43°C on Wednesday.
Greece’s heat wave is expected to last for six days and peak on Friday, but experts have warned the extreme weather could spark wildfires that have been deadly in the past.
To show how concerned health officials are about the impending heat wave, the Greek government held emergency meetings yesterday and called on employers to ensure that staff do not work away from home between 12pm and 5pm in the coming days.
It comes after the World Meteorological Organization said the start of this month was the hottest week on record for the planet.
“The world just had its warmest week on record, according to preliminary data,” the WMO said in a statement, after climate change and the early stages of the El Nino weather pattern caused the warmest June on record.
It is the latest in a series of records halfway through a year that has already seen drought in Spain and severe heat waves in both China and the United States.
Temperatures are breaking records, both on land and in the oceans, with “potentially devastating consequences for ecosystems and the environment,” according to the WMO.
“We are in uncharted territory and we can expect more records to be broken as El Nino develops and these impacts will extend into 2024,” said Christopher Hewitt, WMO director of Climate Services. “This is worrying news for the planet.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that ‘the situation we are now witnessing is evidence that climate change is out of control’.
In addition to wilting crops, melting glaciers and an increased risk of wildfires, higher-than-normal temperatures are also causing health problems ranging from heat stroke and dehydration to cardiovascular stress.
New research published Monday shows that more than 61,000 people died as a result of the heat during Europe’s record-breaking summer last year.
The majority of the deaths were of people over the age of 80, and about 63 percent of those who died from the heat were women, according to research published in the journal Nature Medicine.
The world has warmed by an average of nearly 1.2 C since the mid-19th century, leading to extreme weather, including more intense heat waves, more severe droughts in some areas and storms intensified by rising sea levels.
Oceans absorb most of the heat generated by planet-warming gases, creating heat waves that harm aquatic life, altering weather patterns and disrupting crucial planetary regulatory systems.
In June, global sea surface temperatures reached unprecedented levels, while Antarctic sea ice reached the lowest level of the month since satellite observations began, at 17 percent below average, breaking the previous June record by a significant margin.
While sea surface temperatures normally drop relatively quickly after annual peaks, they remained high this year, with scientists warning that this underlines an underappreciated but serious impact of climate change.
“If the oceans warm up significantly, it will have a knock-on effect on the atmosphere, on sea ice and ice worldwide,” said Michael Sparrow, head of the World Climate Research Program at the WMO.
“There are a lot of concerns from the scientific community and a lot of catching up from the scientific community trying to understand the incredible changes we’re seeing right now.”
El Nino is a naturally occurring pattern that increases global heat, as well as drought in some parts of the world and heavy rainfall elsewhere.
But Sparrow said the effects are likely to be felt more acutely later in the year. “El Nino hasn’t really got going yet,” he said.