Record heat wave spreads across the Northern Hemisphere

(Rome) The heat wave spreads on Saturday, from Europe to China via the United States, forcing the authorities to take drastic measures to deal with these heat waves and new fires, new illustrations of global warming climatic.

Italy, from north to south, is experiencing a heat wave with historic temperature records expected in the coming days.

On Sunday, 16 cities will be on red alert across the country, with temperatures expected to reach 36/37°C from Rome to Bologna, before a dreaded peak early next week.

“It’s the furnace. You can’t stay too long in the same place,” Veronika Niederlovi, 16, a Czech tourist who came to visit Rome, told AFP on Saturday morning.

According to the daily Il Messaggerotwo amateur soccer players aged 48 and 51 died on Friday evening, after illness probably due to the heat, during matches in the Naples region (South).

The Italian Meteorological Center says it fears “the most intense heat wave of the summer but also one of the most intense of all time”.

The north of the peninsula should not be spared with 38 ° C expected Tuesday in Milan.

Other countries in Europe are also facing a large heat wave.

In Germany, over a large part of the country, temperatures could climb up to 38 degrees, according to a press release from the meteorological service published on Saturday.

The highest temperatures were measured in the Bavarian towns of Möhrendorf-Kleinseebach (37.9 degrees) and Kitzingen (37.2 degrees). 36.3 degrees were reached in Jena and 36.1 degrees in Notzingen in Baden-Württemberg.

In addition, 35°C was recorded in Berlin and 34°C in Munich.

In France, the Minister of Agriculture, Marc Fesneau, was severely criticized on Saturday, in particular by the paleoclimatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte, for having assured that the temperatures were “fairly normal for a summer”.

Other influential personalities reacted, such as agroclimatology Serge Zaka. “When will our politicians understand and take on the challenges of climate change? “, he lamented on Twitter.

The month of June was the second hottest ever recorded in France, where several departments have been placed on heat wave orange vigilance since Tuesday.

Acropolis closed

Greece is also suffering from a heat wave which forced the authorities to close the Acropolis of Athens during the hottest hours of the day on Sunday for the third consecutive day, when temperatures could reach 41 ° C in the country.

As on Friday and Saturday, the UNESCO World Heritage site that is overrun with tourists will not welcome any visitors between 11:30 a.m. local (4:30 a.m. Eastern) and 5:30 p.m. local (10 a.m. a.m. 30 a.m. Eastern Time), Athens Antiquities Euphoria reported.

Since Thursday, the Red Cross, deployed at the foot of the Acropolis to help tourists who could be victims of sunstroke or fainting, has distributed more than 50,000 50 cl bottles of water.

The NGO teams have intervened “dozens of times” to rescue visitors who have suffered in particular from discomfort or shortness of breath in recent days.

In Spain, a new wave of heat is expected between Monday and Wednesday after a brief respite this weekend after a week when temperatures exceeded 40 ° C in Andalusia (South) as well as in the Canary Islands .

“This new wave will be brief but intense: we should exceed 42°”, wrote the Meteorological Agency (AEMET) on Twitter.

North Africa is also affected. In Morocco, a new heat wave is announced until Tuesday, with temperatures varying between 37 and 47 ° C in several provinces, according to the General Directorate of Meteorology (DGM).

In Asia, several provinces in southern and southeast China will experience high temperatures over the weekend, reaching 35 to 40 degrees C, according to the Central Meteorological Observatory. In parts of the northwest, some cities could even exceed 40°C.

In Japan, the authorities have called on the population to be careful as temperatures are expected to reach 39 ° C on Sunday and Monday in the east of the country, according to the local forecaster.

On the other side of the globe, the southern United States is roasting in the heat: tens of millions of Americans, from California to Texas, have experienced dangerously high temperatures which are expected to peak over the weekend .

“Several temperature records are likely and air quality problems will be common in several regions of the United States”, alerts the National Weather Service (NWS) in a bulletin on Saturday.

In Phoenix, a metropolis in Arizona in the southwestern United States, 47°C are expected in the early evening on the 16^e consecutive day of highs above 43°C.

California wildfires

In southern California, American firefighters have been fighting several very violent fires since Friday which have ravaged more than 1,214 hectares and led to the evacuation of the population.

Smoke from fires in Canada, where more than 500 fires are out of control, had already led to several episodes of heavy air pollution over the northeastern United States in June.

In Jordan, in the grip of a heat wave which exceeded 40 ° C in certain regions, the relief workers are fighting fires in the forests of Ajloun (North).

Globally, June was the hottest month ever measured, according to the European Copernicus and American NASA and NOAA agencies.

Then, the first full week of July was in turn the hottest on record, according to preliminary data from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Greenhouse gas emissions are increasing the strength, duration and rate of repetition of heat waves, experts say.

Heat is one of the deadliest weather events, the WMO said. Last summer in Europe alone, high temperatures caused more than 60,000 deaths, according to a recent study.