Pádraig Hoare: Heatwaves may put end to Irish taking summer breaks in Europe
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Steam rooms are nice places, but you wouldn’t want to stay in one for too long, you wouldn’t sleep there, and you most definitely would not plonk yourself down there for two weeks at a time.
As the anti-cyclone weather pattern Cerberus, named after the feared Hound of Hades in ancient Greek mythology, ominously bears its teeth and snarls its way around continental Europe, raising temperatures into the mid-40s in some countries, perhaps Irish holidaymakers can now feel firsthand exactly what climate change and extreme weather is doing in real time.
Steam rooms are similar to saunas, only cooler, usually around 45C but with high levels of humidity to make them feel unbearable after a while. A bit like parts of Sardinia, Sicily, and Greece at the moment.
Trying to find shelter or stay hydrated in conditions akin to half a boiled kettle does not sound like my idea of a nice break away.
More than 100 weather stations in Spain alone reached 35C before 6am on Wednesday this week, with the country's national weather agency warning that “hot winds blowing from the interior will cause temperatures to soar” even higher.
In Italy, 10 cities including Rome and Florence were put on alert for extreme temperatures, with some parts of the country reaching 45C. The islands of Sicily and Sardinia were braced to surpass such temperatures.
Head of the Italian Meteorological Society, Luca Mercalli told CNN “the Earth has a high fever and Italy is feeling it first hand”, as tourists passed out at Rome’s famed Colosseum.
In Greece, officials put a ban on access to nature reserves and forests over wildfire fears, while working animals such as horses and donkeys offering rides in tourist areas have been curtailed, as temperatures in the country were predicted to reach 44C.
The Cerberus effect of the past few days will linger on for a few more, but this is no longer an anomaly.
The climate change crisis is warming Europe twice as fast as anywhere else on the planet, incontrovertible evidence now tells us. Such heatwaves are becoming as depressingly familiar in Europe as rowdy stag parties and roasted pink skin.
June and July are on their way to becoming months in future years where typical holidays —taken for generations by Irish families — will become seriously compromised.
Exaggeration? Doomsday embellishment? You never hear of anyone staying a couple of nice relaxing weeks in California’s notoriously unforgiving Death Valley, do you? Furnace Creek in Death Valley almost reached 57C more than a century ago — an unimaginable and unassailable record then, but more likely a summer norm at times in the coming decades.
Lists of the hottest places in the world will no longer be confined to Death Valley and Kebili in Tunisia and Ahvaz in Iran and Tirat Tsvi in Israel, which have all breached 50C in recorded history.
The Middle East’s reign as the most consistently sweltering area of the planet finally has a challenger to the crown. Europe is no longer a young upstart but a swaggering contender.
The evidence is pointing to days in Europe exceeding 50C. Last year, this reporter asked what the data from the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) was telling us.
Senior scientist for the C3S, Freja Vamborg, said that temperatures of 50C in Europe are now inevitable because of global warming, after Sicily saw a record 48.8C in 2021.
"48.8C is not that far away from 50C, and the 48.8C was already 0.8C warmer than the previous European record. I won’t give a timeframe, but, for sure, this is not going to be the last temperature record we’ve seen in Europe," she said.
Research by scientists at the University of Washington last year found that days exceeding 39C will be three to 10 times more common in Western Europe by the end of the century, even if global warming is curbed to levels agreed in the historic Paris Agreement.
Even if temperatures in the 50C bracket are outliers, is it any more appealing to wake up to 40C to 45C and have to seek constant shade and hydration while on your holidays in Spain, Portugal, Italy, or Greece? Does the threat of constant wildfires in the summer months sound like fun?
If you’re hoping for respite next summer and that things will settle down, think again. The return of the El Niño weather phenomenon after three years in exile puts paid to that.
El Niño refers to warming of the ocean surface, or above-average sea surface temperatures, in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, affecting the rest of the world when it happens. The phenomenon returned this summer after the third winter of the La Niña water cooling phenomenon, in a highly unusual "triple dip" situation.
Opposite to the warming El Niño pattern, La Niña refers to the large-scale cooling of the ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, coupled with changes in the tropical atmospheric circulation, namely winds, pressure, and rainfall.
Even with La Niña, Europe recorded its hottest-ever summer in 2022. The effects of El Niño will ripple for months to come, most likely deep into next year.
Who would have ever thought that the exasperation of two weeks of lashing rain and wind in Waterville or Trabolgan or Achill Island in July or August would actually sound more appealing than finding shade under a tree in Estepona or Corfu?
We’re stuck with global warming now but by cutting our collective greenhouse gas emissions globally, we at least give our descendants a chance of not making large swathes of our world, including parts of Europe in the summer, as inhospitable ghost settlements once home to thriving civilisations.
CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB