TICK TOCK THE CLIMATE CLOCK PART FIFTEEN

Oh! We're having a heatwave, a tropical heatwave
The temperature's rising, it isn't surprising

Irving Berlin

It’s the Dog Days of Summer, even though summer is still a puppy, and this Sunday's climate post is all about the HEAT!!

Drastic Temperatures Call for Drastic Measures.  European cities are taking exceptional steps to limit the impact of a historic early summer heatwave as a plume of hot Saharan air was sucked northwards last week by a storm stalled over the Atlantic and a high pressure system in central Europe.  

• German officials imposed a 120km/h speed limit on stretches of the Saxony-Anhalt Autobahn when the road surface began to deteriorate.  

• Milanese charities distributed up to 10,000 bottles of free water to the homeless and other people in need. 

• Innsbruck’s famous carriage horses were taken off the streets.

• Schools in parts of France were closed and examinations were postponed for a week. 

• Authorities in Paris, Lyon, Strasbourg, and Marseille banned older cars from entering their city centers to combat pollution.

• German newspapers published guides on whether the heat meant that employees could simply skip work (What? No!) and if wearing shorts at work was acceptable (It depends). 

• After a group of women took off their bikini tops in Munich to bathe in the Isar River, security guards ordered them to put their tops back on, citing local public nudity prohibitions. In solidarity, about two dozen women also took their tops off. 

• German police in the eastern state of Brandenburg, which neighbors Berlin, were more tolerant and posted two pictures of a man wearing nothing but a helmet while riding his motor scooter.

• To prevent new recruits from overheating during basic training, the watch-making Swiss required the plebes to fill out forms documenting their hourly water consumption.

• Zookeepers allowed jaguars to swim in the pool of the Zoo de Bordeaux-Pessac in southwestern France, while frozen raisin sorbet was fed to the lemurs at the Mulhouse Zoo in northeastern France.

Speaking of France, Romance is Dead.  The official registered temperature in Gallargues-le-Montueux, a village in the romantic South of France, hit a record 45.9 C. (114.62 F.) on Friday, June 28.  The French national weather service compared the temperature to that sometimes reached in Death Valley, California, in August.  

We’re Gonna Party Like It’s 2003!  Not.  In the neighboring French region of Vaucluse, a mountain biker died after collapsing from heat exhaustion.  In Spain, where temperatures rose above 43 C. on Saturday for the fourth consecutive day, two people died from heat-related complications.  Three people died as a result of the heat in Italy, where Milan was hit by power cuts caused by a spike in air conditioning demands.   Three people, including two in their 70s, died in southern France after suffering heart attacks while swimming.  In Poland, the interior ministry said 90 people have drowned so far this June trying to cool off in lakes or rivers.  In Lithuania 27 people were reported to have died in similar circumstances.    Severe heat waves are a serious concern in Europe, where people remember the 2003 heat wave that killed as many as 20,000, including an estimated 15,000 in France alone.  

Would You Like Tarragon With that, Sir?    More than 500 firefighters in the Tarragona province of Catalonia battled a wildfire — likely caused by the spontaneous combustion of chicken dung.  (Seriously.)  Spain has experience with hot African air sweeping over the Iberian Peninsula, but the Spanish National Weather Agency reported these siroccos are getting more frequent and lasting longer.

I Left My Air Conditioner in San Francisco.  Typically cool San Francisco, of which someone (not Mark Twain, as it turns out) once said, “The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco," peaked at a record high of 37.78 C. (100 F.) on June 12, increasing daytime electrical demand. 

Can’t That Wait Until June 21?  In Helsinki, all the way up north on the Baltic Sea, the daily high reached 28.89 C. (84 F.) on June 6; and on June 10, Delhi recorded a scorching daily record of 48 C. (118 F.), both dates being well before the official start of summer.  France, Germany, Spain, Czech Republic and Poland have all crashed past their previous all-time June temperature records.

Great Expectations.  Long-range weather forecasts predict temperatures throughout July and August to rival those of 2018, which according to the European Environment Agency was one of the three warmest years on record on the continent.  Per the Guardian:  “Scientists have said last year’s heatwave, which led to increased mortality rates, a dramatic decline in crop yields, the shutdown of nuclear power plants and wildfires inside the Arctic Circle, was linked to the climate emergency and that extreme climate events are likely to be regular occurrences in the coming decades.”  

You Sound Like a Broken Record.  The World Meteorological Organization said that 2019 was on track to being one of the hottest years globally, which would mean that 2015 to 2019 would then be the hottest five-year period on record, adding that the European heatwave was “absolutely consistent” with extremes linked to the impact of greenhouse gas emissions.

From the Weather Underground.  Meteorologists warn that such heatwaves are likely to become more frequent even if countries limit global temperature increases to 1.5 C. as agreed in the 2015 Paris climate accord.  The EU has pledged to cut carbon emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030.  The U.S., number 2 in carbon emissions, plans to pull out of the Paris Accord as soon as legally possible.

Keep it real!  And keep it cool!

Marilyn