Is Europe's record heatwave a sign of its future climate? — Global News Podcast

[00:00:00] Celia Hatton: Welcome to the Global News Podcast from the BBC. I'm Celia Hatton and today I'm joined by our climate editor Justin Rolad. We need his analysis because today much of Western Europe is currently baking in a heat wave with temperatures significantly higher than average for this time of year. Justin, can you put this into context for us? I've mentioned that we're facing an intense heat wave in Europe right now, but is this really the first of what's to come? [00:00:27] Justin Rolad: It is, yeah. So obviously we've always had heat waves. Heat waves in Europe typically involve high pressure systems that kind of press down, keeping the hot weather in place. They often draw in in Europe, weather up from Africa, so hot air up from Africa, maybe from the West, and then they deliver clear skies. So you get a lot of sunshine and a lot of humidity, so a lot of heat. So we've always had those weather patterns. We've always had those heat waves. What happens in a warming world is that those heat waves are now a bit hotter and they last a bit longer and they happen a bit more frequently. So what we're seeing is the extremes getting more dramatic, not just a little bit more dramatic. The world's warm by like 1.3, 1.4 degrees Celsius, but out at the extremes, that change in temperature pushes the extremes out even further. So significantly hotter. At the moment here in the UK, we are about between 10 and 12 degrees Celsius hotter than we would normally expect to be in June. And for a temperate country, that is a huge margin. [00:01:27] Celia Hatton: Okay, so you've taken us through what we're seeing at this point in time, but I know you've been speaking to the weather authorities here in the UK to get a forecast of what we could be seeing decades from now. Can you take us through what they told you? [00:01:39] Justin Rolad: Yeah, so they did a really interesting experiment. They looked back at a really kind of celebrated heat wave that was here in the UK back in 1976, so 50 years ago, and they threw forward. They said, if we got that kind of heat wave, look at the weather patterns, put it into the computers. If we got that kind of heat wave in the kind of warmed world, the climate changed world of 2056, what would it look like? And here is that forecast. So they're saying temperatures in England could peak at 45 degrees Celsius, 41 degrees in Wales, 38 degrees in Scotland, 30 degrees in Northern Ireland. And that frankly sounds like a weather forecast for a different continent, maybe from Africa or Asia. But that is the UK Met offices, the kind of reservoir of expertise about meteorology here in the UK. It's their best guess at a forecast for the UK in just 30 years' time. [00:02:31] Celia Hatton: So was that taking a heat wave that might occur naturally? We'd always see a heat wave once in a while anyway. And then you layer climate change conditions on top of that. Is that what that forecast? [00:02:41] Justin Rolad: Well, there's two things. One, yes, the heat wave sits on top of a, it occurs in a warming world and therefore is naturally hotter. But we're also expecting to see more heat waves, more of these kind of, you know, the weather patterns that cause heat waves and see them last for longer. So the extremes are really pushed out. So we see much more extreme heat in a warming world. [00:03:03] Celia Hatton: You mentioned one noted heat wave in 1976. I want to take us a little bit forward in time to 2003. That was a heat wave that took place across Western Europe and it led to thousands of deaths. Can you take us through what happened in that heat wave and what we learned from that moment? [00:03:21] Justin Rolad: So that was another European heat wave. I mean, comparable to this, I suspect temperature is probably a little lower than we're expecting even this week, but caused the death or is estimated to have caused the death or played a role in the death of 70,000 people. So huge death toll here in Europe and a really kind of red warning light that the kind of weather climate change was bringing could have real kind of health consequences, even in Europe, which obviously is relatively speaking, you know, cooler than other parts of the world, shall we say. So that was a real kind of warning. And we should be quite careful about these figures for heat deaths, because, you know, if you're a doctor and somebody dies of a heart attack on a hot day, what caused the death? Well, you're the doctor. You say the heart attack caused the death. You don't necessarily say, oh, by the way, it was 35 degrees Celsius when it happens. So there's a suspicion that actually the role of heat is probably much greater in death on really hot days than is recorded, because there isn't really a mechanism for capturing the role that it plays in ill health. [00:04:22] Celia Hatton: But even with that, you know, possible death toll of 70,000, that was a real wake-up call, wasn't it? What measures did governments put in place starting at that time? How are governments across Europe trying to counter the effects of heat waves? [00:04:39] Justin Rolad: Well, it's a patchwork. And lots of campaigners would say it is really inadequate to the demands of the kind of weather that we're seeing. Now, we get a lot more alerts. So, you know, met offices around the world issue alerts much more often, recognising that, you know, forewarned means people are better prepared for the things that are coming. I think, you know, there's much more publicity about how to deal with the heat. The need to close your curtains and windows on hot days, have a fan at night, hydrate, all of that stuff is much more recognised. And there is a recognition that the design of cities needs to change. And you do begin to see in some European cities a real effort to put more green spaces in there, which have a real cooling effect, that kind of thing, beginning to sort of recognise that architecture needs to be changed. But you only have to go to a kind of, you know, new build area of London, for example. And you see these, you know, tower blocks that have been built with glass windows. They often don't have through breezes and they become incredibly hot. So, and there aren't actually very good rules on, you know, the heat limits that should be imposed, that should be set for homes when they're built. So we're a long way behind. You know, we've got a huge backlog, essentially. Over the last 20, 30 years, we've built loads of those kind of housing. And that really struggle, people really struggle in the heat because those places get so hot. There is an effort, beginning to be an effort to kind of recognise that support is needed for people, particularly if they live in, you know, in small flats with lots of glass, that they need places that they can go that they can cool down. [00:06:08] Celia Hatton: I mean, how much urgency are you seeing in these conversations? I mean, you've used the word begin a lot, that governments are beginning to understand and recognise that this needs to be done. In the conversations that you're hearing, is that really, is it being seen as an emergency measure that needs to be enacted? [00:06:26] Justin Rolad: There's a lot of pressure from campaigners. And like I say, there are lots of countries have bodies like the Climate Change Committee advising governments. The governments don't have to take the advice. And what we're seeing is year after year, we've got another report coming out tomorrow, year after year, they're saying, you know, what you're doing isn't adequate. You need to do more. And I mean, we've talked about heat in homes, but you've got to look at heat on infrastructure. So, for example, the railway network here in the UK often breaks down in hot weather. The rails expand and the trains can't run on them. So there are all sorts of other infrastructure that needs attention as well. And, you know, there is a recognition that the government here and across Europe, across the world, isn't adequately recognising the changes that need to happen. This is long-term, large-scale, long-term expenditure where the benefit isn't entirely clear. On a hot day, you go, well, it would be great if we had air conditioning. When it cools down, you know, there's much less pressure on the government. So it's quite easy to dodge the kind of long-term spending commitments that this involves. [00:07:22] Celia Hatton: I mean, countries like India are routinely recording much higher temperatures, up to 50 degrees Celsius. I know India is a country that you know well, Justin. I mean, how much worse can it get? [00:07:34] Justin Rolad: I mean, one of the key factors in all of this is actually, yes, the heat's really important, but also the level of humidity. And the higher the humidity, the harder it is for our bodies to cool down. So I lived in Delhi and typically in Delhi towards just before the monsoon. So in kind of May, June, it would get very, very hot, like 48, 49 degrees Celsius, but it would be quite dry and therefore physically quite manageable. And I'll be honest, we had air conditioning in our home, which obviously made a massive difference, but it was kind of more manageable. And then when the monsoon broke and you had, you know, humidity, it became much harder to handle. So one of the key factors is how much humidity we're getting in. Humidity now is also a feature of the increasing heat we're getting, making it harder for our bodies to handle the heat that we're seeing around the world. [00:08:18] Celia Hatton: And just casting our thoughts far into the future. I mean, we've been seeing mass urbanization over the last few decades, people actively leaving the countryside, moving into cities. Could we see a reverse of that because cities will just become far too hot to handle in the summertime? [00:08:33] Justin Rolad: I mean, you can see places in the world where that could be true. You look at somewhere like Dubai and you think, really, is that really a kind of suitable infrastructure built in that place? There may be challenges in places like that. We've got to remember when we think about these things, cities are really efficient ways for, human beings to live and interact and have proved real engines of kind of economic growth and kind of massively raised living standards and also have helped engender kind of have helped lead to smaller family sizes. So there are all sorts of benefits of living in cities. It's relatively cheaper to provide infrastructure in cities. So there are benefits like that. But yes, there is a huge legacy challenge as the entire world warms up where we need to make sure that our homes, schools, hospitals and other infrastructure is adequately prepared for the kind of temperatures we're going to see. [00:09:22] Celia Hatton: Thank you, Justin. [00:09:31] Speaker ?: Thank you, Justin. Our climate editor, Justin Rolat, and if you want to hear more from the Global News Podcast, click the link below.