Wildfires in Algeria have killed at least 69 people as the country contends with a heat wave like the ones fueling fires in Southern Europe. Photo / AP
Wildfires in Algeria have killed at least 69 people as the country contends with a heat wave like the ones fueling fires in Southern Europe. Photo / AP
Europe will have to brace for summer temperatures of 50C in future, the UK's Met Office warns, a day after Sicily registered blistering heat of 48.8C in what is believed to be a new European record.
The grim warning came as four people died in Italy's wildfires, firefighters in Greececontinued to battle blazes across the country and Algeria announced days of national mourning for its dozens of dead.
The 48.8C recorded in the town of Floridia, near Syracuse in eastern Sicily, was a harbinger of things to come, the Met Office said.
Fire along a road in the Municipality of Blufi, in the upper Madonie, near Palermo, Sicily, Italy. Many wildfires continue plaguing the region. Photo / AP
Exceeding the previous record of 48C in Athens in 1977, it "raises concerns that even higher temperatures are potential in future, possibly even exceeding 50C," the Met Office said.
"The chances each summer of seeing really extreme temperatures are pretty high now," said Prof Peter Stott, the Met Office's leading expert on climate change and an authority on European heatwaves.
A view of a fire near Petralia Soprana, in the upper Madonie, near Palermo, Sicily, Italy. Photo / AP
"We can't say exactly when it is likely to happen, but Europe will need to prepare for the eventuality of further records being broken, with temperatures above 50C being possible in Europe in future, most likely close to the Mediterranean where the influence of hot air from North Africa is strongest."
Since the pre-industrial era, the temperature in North Africa has increased by about 2C – far more than the average temperature rise around the world of 1.1C.
Record temperatures
After Turkey and Greece experienced exceptionally high temperatures last week, the heat is now building in the central Mediterranean.
The high temperatures are expected to extend into the Iberian peninsula and Morocco in the next couple of days.
Spain may exceed its current temperature record of 47.3C, recorded in Cordoba in 2003.
Both Spain and Portugal were on alert for wildfires as the heatwave moved towards them. In 2017, fires killed dozens of people in Portugal.
"It will be next week before temperatures are expected to slowly decrease across the region," said Chris Almond, a meteorologist working with the Met Office's Global Guidance Unit.
In Italy, firefighters battled hundreds of blazes across the southern regions of Calabria, Sicily, Campania and Sardinia.
The fires have claimed the lives of four people, two of them elderly farmers who were trying to save their property and livestock.
In Floridia, the town where the record temperature of 48.8C was registered, the mayor said it was the culmination of weeks of extreme heat. "Temperatures have been high since June. On July 29 it was 44C and the day afterwards 47C," said Marco Carianni.
Italy's heatwave is expected to peak on Friday, when 15 cities around the country will be on a public health red alert, from Bolzano, Trieste and Brescia in the north to Rome, Palermo, Florence and Bari in the centre and south.
"Temperatures this high in summer are not unusual. What is unusual is their duration," said Antonio Sano, from the weather website ilmeteo.it.
"I've never seen a catastrophe on this scale," said Nello Musumeci, the governor of Sicily.
In Greece, the prime minister said the country was "on the 10th day of an unprecedented natural disaster" as hundreds of firefighters tackled new flare-ups.
Rainfall in some areas and a dip in temperatures gave cautious hope that the worst might be over after the most severe heatwave in 30 years burned more than 100,000 hectares of forests and farmland, half of it on the island of Evia.
A burnt house in Agia Anna village on Evia island. Hundreds of firefighters from across Europe and the Middle East have worked to contain flareups that ravaged Greece's forests for a week. Photo / AP
A burnt forest in Agia Anna village on Evia island, about 181 kilometers north of Athens, Greece. Photo / AP
"The climate crisis is here and it shows us that everything needs to change, from the orientation of the economy to national energy policy," said Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Turkey hit by flash floods
Algeria has declared three days of national mourning for the 69 people who were killed by wildfires this week. A man suspected of lighting fires was reportedly lynched and his body burned after the government blamed arsonists for setting the worst fires the country has experienced since independence.
Meanwhile, torrential rain caused severe flooding and mudslides in northern Turkey, killing at least five people, the country's disaster and emergency management agency said.
Across the border in Tunisia, the temperature in Tunis hit an all-time record of 49C earlier this week.
Wildfires in Algeria have killed at least 69 people as the country contends with a heat wave like the ones fueling fires in Southern Europe. Photo / AP
In the United States, nearly 200 million Americans are under heat advisories or excessive heat warnings as two "heat domes" hover above the Pacific Northwest and the East Coast.
The intense heat is expected to bake cities including New York and Philadelphia in the east, as well as Portland and Seattle in the west, with temperatures forecast to surge past 38C this week.
The high temperatures and lack of wind have aided the spread of wildfires across the west coast, where California firefighters are still battling the 500,000-acre Dixie fire - the second-largest in state history. The fire has destroyed more than 1000 homes and hundreds of other buildings, but so far no one has died.
In British Columbia, Canada, emergency services are battling nearly 300 separate fires. Around 5400 properties are under an evacuation order, while another 31,000 have been placed on alert.
The series of extreme weather around the globe comes after a "code red" report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was published on Monday, warning that the world was warming far faster than previously feared.
The burning issue: Why are the fires out of control?
Three elements are required to form a wildfire - a source of heat, fuel and oxygen - and right now much of Europe and northern Africa have ample supplies of all three.
High temperatures had struck Europe this summer due to high pressure which led to a sinking motion in the atmosphere, Met Office expert operational meteorologist Chris Almond told Britain's Daily Telegraph. This compressed the air and heated it up, and when coupled with heat from the sun, drove up temperatures.
"Under high pressure, winds tend to be light, so the heat doesn't get dispersed as much and this also helps conditions to get hotter and hotter," Almond explained.
He also warned that the "weather situation is not particularly unusual".
A report published this week by the UN's International Panel on Climate Change stated that "concurrent heat waves and droughts" have "increased in frequency over the last century at the global scale due to human influence".
A view of a fire near Mandas, in the south of Sardinia, Italy as wildfires continue plaguing the region. Photo / AP
The report also warned that the Earth was warming more rapidly than previously predicted.
In many parts of the continent, temperatures have soared to above 40C. Rainfall has also been significantly low across much of southern Europe, drying out forest areas and leaving them vulnerable to fast-spreading flames.
