Europe endured record number of ‘extreme heat stress’ days in 2023
Al Jazeera
New report warns people are increasingly at risk in a continent warming twice as fast as the global average.
Europe is increasingly facing bouts of heat so intense that the human body cannot cope, climate monitors have warned.
The continent endured a record number of “extreme heat stress” days in 2023, the European Union’s Copernicus climate monitoring service and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Monday.
In writing its latest report, Copernicus and the WMO noted last year’s extreme conditions, including a July heatwave that pushed 41 percent of southern Europe into strong, very strong or extreme heat stress – the biggest area of Europe under such conditions in any day on record.
The continent also suffered catastrophic flooding, severe droughts, violent storms and its largest ever forest fires.
“We’re seeing an increasing trend in the number of days with heat stress across Europe and 2023 was no exception, with Europe seeing a record number of days with extreme heat stress,” said Rebecca Emerton, a climate scientist at Copernicus.
