July 2022 is on track to break all records for temperatures and fires in Europe: Portugal, Spain and France are currently experiencing one heat wave and temperatures of up to 40°C in the shade have also reached unprecedented levels in Ireland and the UK. Due to the drought and extreme heat, several regions on the Iberian Peninsula, hit by violent forest fires in Greece and France. This second heatwave after the premature one in June could prove worse than the 2003 heatwave, which caused nearly 70,000 deaths in Europe.
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According to a report published by the journal Nature Study Europe has become a “hotspot” for heat waves, the frequency and intensity of which have been “three to four times higher” than regions of similar latitude and altitude over the past 42 years. Natural phenomena such as sea temperature, fluctuations in atmospheric and oceanic currents and the exchange between land, sea and the atmosphere are responsible for this.
But human-caused global warming through greenhouse gases also contributes, because it “increases the intensity and frequency of heat waves and “can influence the factors of natural variability”.
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