The northern hemisphere begins another week of oppressive heat on Monday, with more than 40 ° C expected in Italy and Spain, a record temperature in China and devastating fires in Canada and California.
Up to 48 ° C are expected at the beginning of the week in Sardinia, an Italian island in the Mediterranean. And Rome is preparing to reach 42°C on Tuesday, an absolute record for the capital.
In Spain, emerging from an already sweltering week, the weather agency issued an orange alert for Monday, with 38°C to 42°C expected across the country, temperatures “5°C to 10°C above above the summer average.
The alert is even red (extreme danger) in certain areas of Andalusia (south), where the mercury could exceed 44 ºC.
The situation will worsen on Tuesday in some places with “10°C to 15°C” above normal. The alert will turn red over three regions in the northeast (Aragon, Catalonia and the island of Mallorca), with 42°C to 44°C expected.
On the island of La Palma, in the Canary Islands off the African coast, a fire, now in decline, ravaged 4,000 hectares this weekend.
The intense heat episode should last until Wednesday, before giving way from Thursday.
“Tropicalization of the climate”
In Europe, the warming is twice as fast as the global average, according to experts, and the Mediterranean countries are particularly affected.
“The hot air that generally descends over the African promontory, creating deserts, has moved towards Europe. In this sense, we can speak of a tropicalization of the climate,” Claudio Cassardo, meteorologist and professor at the University of Turin, told AFP.
In Rome, the heat has not deterred visitors, who are queuing outside the Colosseum and the Roman Forum, despite a thermometer already indicating 32 ° C at 10:30 a.m.
“I come from South Africa, we are used to this heat: at home it is sometimes up to 50°C,” says Jacob Vreunissen, 60, a civil engineer in Cape Town, who admits, however, sleeping with air conditioning. “Otherwise, we die in the bedroom!” »
The situation is sometimes more delicate for workers exposed to very high heat.
“I can’t stand the heat,” confesses Marian, a taxi driver in Bucharest, who does not wish to specify his surname.
“That’s why tomorrow I’m taking my wife and children to the mountains,” adds the 51-year-old, regretting “the days when seasons were seasons in Romania” as temperatures approached on Monday 40°C.
Same story in Athens, where Nancy Vikeli stands in the sun from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to sell SIM cards from a major telephone company.
“The working conditions are very difficult,” admits the young woman. “We often take breaks to cool off and go to the shade.”
A forest fire, fanned by strong winds, broke out on Monday in Kouvaras, 50 km east of Athens, Greek firefighters said, as authorities issued orders to evacuate as a precaution. several seaside areas.
After a peak this weekend at 44.2 ° C in the region of Thebes (center), temperatures in Greece fell slightly on Monday and the Acropolis of Athens reopened normally, after three days of closure at the busiest hours. hot.
In France, temperatures are expected to reach 40° C on Tuesday in the South-East, according to Météo-France. The rest of the territory will be relatively spared by the heat wave.
Fires in Canada
In the United States, the weather services observe an “oppressive” heat wave in the south of the country and predict several temperature records.
In California’s famous Death Valley, one of the hottest places on earth, the thermometer read 52°C on Sunday.
Several very violent fires in the south of the state have ravaged more than 3000 hectares and led to the evacuation of the population.
Other parts of the United States are at risk of severe weather. “Strong to severe thunderstorms, heavy rain and flooding are possible in multiple locations,” including New England, according to the National Weather Service.
In Canada, more than ten million hectares have already burned this year, with 882 fires still active on Monday, including 579 considered out of control, according to national figures from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center (CIFFC).
Two firefighters died fighting the megafires, authorities said.
severe weather in Asia
Japan issued heat stroke alerts on Monday for 32 of its 47 prefectures, which are experiencing temperatures close to the all-time high of 41.1°C reached in 2018.
“Clearly the climate has changed. Before, the temperature [dans la préfecture de Yamanashi, proche de Tokyo] never reached 30°C. Now we can easily reach them,” laments Tomoya Abe, 50, returning from a camping trip to escape his apartment in the capital “where the temperature can rise to 37°C”.
The country is also facing torrential rains that have killed at least eight people.
In South Korea, rescuers struggled to reach people trapped in a flooded tunnel as heavy rains in recent days left at least 39 people dead.
Faced with this assessment, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged on Monday to “completely review” his country’s approach to extreme weather events linked to climate change.
China has broken a temperature record for mid-July, with 52.2 ° C recorded Sunday in the arid region of Xinjiang (west), according to the country’s weather services.
Heat is one of the deadliest weather events, the World Meteorological Organization recently recalled. Last summer in Europe alone, high temperatures caused more than 60,000 deaths, according to a recent study.