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As Heat Wave Scorches Europe, Paris Records Its Hottest Day, 108.7 Fahrenheit A Heat Wave Bakes Europe, Where Air-Conditioning Is Scarce
(32 minutes later)
LONDON — Never in recorded history has Paris been hotter than it was on Thursday. LONDON — Never in recorded history has Paris been hotter than it was on Thursday, when the temperature neared 110 degrees. The same was true of Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, as a dangerous heat wave scorched Western Europe.
The same was true of Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, as temperatures rose and records tumbled one by one across Western Europe, scorching the continent and sending residents scrambling to seek relief from a dangerous heat wave. Parisians could be seen plunging fully clothed into the fountains of the Trocadéro, Viennese cooled themselves in municipal misters, and Amsterdamers dangled their feet in a repurposed kiddie pool at a cafe. But here is what is far less likely to be seen: air-conditioners.
In Paris, the temperature soared to 42.6 degrees Celsius (108.7 Fahrenheit), breaking a record set in 1947, 40.4 degrees Celsius, according to the French national weather service, which said the temperatures could rise further. Some 20 million people in northern France were expected to be affected by the heat. That’s because the technology that transformed American homes and offices over the last century still gets a chilly reception in much of Europe.
In the Netherlands, temperatures topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), shattering the record high set only a day earlier, the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute said. In Germany, the northwestern town of Lingen hit 42.6 Celsius (108.7 Fahrenheit), a new national record, Germany’s National Meteorological Service said. “Air-conditioners are expensive and consume a lot of energy,” Sadio Konte, a 26-year-old cooling himself in the waters of the Trocadéro, by the Eiffel Tower, said Thursday. “Making the most of fresh and natural places is a smarter solution. And it’s free.”
And for the second time this week, Belgium measured its hottest day, with a temperature of 40.6 Celsius in Kleine Brogel (105 Fahrenheit) on Thursday passing the mark set a day earlier, 40.2 Celsius. The authorities issued a code red alert for the first time since the weather warning system was put in place 20 years ago. In that spirit, German music lovers, among them Chancellor Angela Merkel, attended the Wagner festival at an un-air-conditioned opera hall in the southern city of Bayreuth on Thursday afternoon. Temperatures there topped 93 degrees (about 34 Celsius), but propriety won over practicality, and formal wear was the order of the day.
Still, when tradition-proud cultures meet relentlessly heating planets, it is not usually the planets that bend, and there are signs that sweltering Europeans are rethinking their views on air-conditioning.
“We have seen regular year-on-year growth,” said Maximilian Schichtl, head of a company in Munich that installs and maintains cooling units.
That, scientists say, may only worsen the global-warming problem down the road.
“By cooling off the inside and warming the outside, we are feeding a disastrous vicious circle,” said Brice Tréméac, head of the Laboratory of Cold, Energy and Thermic Systems, a Paris-based public research institute.
On Thursday, however, Europe’s concerns were more immediate.
Owen Landeg, the chief environmental public health scientist at Public Health England, warned that the extremely high temperatures were endangering older people, those in poor health and very young children.
“The extreme heat means that our bodies, especially our hearts and lungs, have to work harder to maintain a normal temperature,” he said in a statement.
In France, the authorities issued hundreds of warnings, hoping to avoid a repeat of the devastating death toll the country suffered in a 2003 heat wave. That was believed to have contributed to almost 15,000 deaths.
“Everyone is at risk with these kinds of temperatures,” the health minister, Agnès Buzyn, told reporters.
Volunteers could be seen on the streets of Paris on Thursday handing out water, and City Hall introduced restrictions on cars because of air pollution.
In Germany, all but the northeastern coastal region was under a heat warning, with officials urging people to drink enough fluids and avoid going outdoors in the afternoon hours.
In Austria, the national railway service began painting stretches of track in white, in the hopes of preventing them from getting so hot that they would bend. Similar projects were taking place in parts of Germany and Switzerland.
The British national weather service placed five of England’s nine regions, including London, on a rare Level 3 health watch, one short of a national emergency.
“This is only the second time temperatures over 100 Fahrenheit have been recorded in the U.K.,” the weather service said.
The hottest summers in Europe in the past 500 years have all come in the past 17 years, scientists say. Several heat waves have been linked to human-caused climate change — and in the years ahead, they say, many more are likely to scorch temperate zones like northern Europe.
In Belgium, where the temperature reached 105, people and infrastructure alike struggled to keep up.
“It’s really shocking to have this heat in Brussels,” said Francesca Van Daele, a student of political science at the Free University of Brussels-VUB. “Our urban planning is not really made for heat waves like this.”“It’s really shocking to have this heat in Brussels,” said Francesca Van Daele, a student of political science at the Free University of Brussels-VUB. “Our urban planning is not really made for heat waves like this.”
The hottest summers in Europe in the past 500 years have all come in the past 17 years, scientists say. Several heat waves have been linked to human-caused climate change. In the years ahead, they say, many more are likely to scorch temperate zones like northern Europe. A Eurostar train en route from Brussels to London broke down Wednesday morning in Tubize, Belgium. Despite the heat, passengers were not allowed to open windows or leave the train for three hours because of safety concerns.
Early Thursday, the No. 1 trending term on Twitter in Britain was #hottestdayoftheyear. The national weather service, the Met Office, had warned that temperatures were expected to break the national record, 38.5 degrees Celsius (101.3 Fahrenheit). By 4 p.m., Cambridge, England, had measured 38.1 degrees Celsius (100.5 Fahrenheit), the hottest day recorded in July in Britain and the second-hottest in general, according to the weather service. “Everything was suddenly down: no air-conditioning, no electricity,” said Paul De Grauwe, a Belgian economist who was on the train. “I have never been so hot in my life.”
“This is only the second time temperatures over 100 Fahrenheit have been recorded in the U.K.,” the Met Office tweeted. Commuters on a crowded subway train had it a bit better in London, where the weather led to some odd sights. After a sweating man in a half-unbuttoned, pink-striped shirt opened a window on the train, sweltering passengers made rare eye contact, trading looks of approval and relief.
Nicky Maxey, a spokeswoman for the weather service, said in an email, “Heat waves are extreme weather events, but research shows that with climate change, they are likely to become more common, perhaps occurring as regularly as every other year.” Forecasters predicted a break in the temperatures as soon as Friday.
She said that a Met Office study into the heat wave that Britain experienced last summer showed it was 30 times more likely for a heat wave to occur now than in 1750 “because of the higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.” But health officials and planners were already talking about the next heat wave, and how to soften the impact of rising temperatures without resorting to air-conditioning.
The Met Office placed five of England’s nine regions, including London, on a rare Level 3 heat health watch — one short of a national emergency. In a Twitter post on Thursday, London’s ambulance service advised Britons to stay hydrated, avoid prolonged exposure to the sun, wear sunscreen and avoid traveling by train if they feel unwell. Europe accounts for just 6 percent of the global share of air-conditioners, compared with 23 percent for the United States and 35 percent for China, according to a 2018 report by the International Energy Agency. More than 90 percent of Japanese and American households have an air conditioning system; fewer than 10 percent of Europeans’ have one. In Germany, the figure is below 2 percent.
Owen Landeg, the chief environmental public health scientist at Public Health England, warned that extremely high temperatures were most likely to affect older people, those with underlying health conditions and very young children. The architecture in many European countries once helped keep cities and towns cool. Narrow streets coupled with high buildings shaded them, while thick-walled buildings and open windows allowed the inside of buildings to keep cool, said Cécile de Munck, a researcher at Météo France, the national weather service said.
“The extreme heat means that our bodies, especially our hearts and lungs, have to work harder to maintain a normal temperature,” he said on Wednesday in a statement. “This is why our advice focuses on reminding people to keep an eye on those who are most at risk.” But the traditional approaches are no longer up to the job.
In Germany, officials expected higher temperatures in the west on Thursday, and all but the northeastern coastal region was under a heat warning, with officials urging people to drink enough fluids and avoid going outdoors in the afternoon hours. Experts have suggested that some simple steps may help, like placing shutters inside buildings, not outside, where they bake in the sun. Trees, loose soils and permeable material on roads also help, they say.
The famed Wagner opera festival was set to open as scheduled on Thursday in the southern city of Bayreuth, where temperatures were expected to reach 34 degrees Celsius (93.2). But it will be even hotter inside the 19th-century opera house, where air-conditioning was rejected over fears that it would negatively alter the acoustics and endanger the singers’ voices. There are also higher-tech approaches.
Chancellor Angela Merkel was expected to be in the crowd for the opening performance of “Tannhäuser,” which is more than four hours long. In cities, underground chilled water pipes offer one alternative to air-conditioning. In Paris, for example, a 49-mile underground network helps cool a big patch of the city, including the Louvre museum. The system pumps cold water from the Seine.
In Spain, the forecast was for temperatures to fall across the country Thursday night, with rain in the northwest. The same was expected in Portugal, where no major fires were burning. In Austria, the national railway service began painting stretches of track in white, in hopes of preventing them from getting so hot that they bend. Similar projects were taking place in parts of Germany and Switzerland. By noon in Paris on Thursday, people were looking for relief wherever they could find it — but only to a point.
A Eurostar train broke down Wednesday morning in Tubize, Belgium, en route to London from Brussels. Despite the heat, passengers were not allowed to open windows or leave the train for three hours because of safety concerns. Luce Tainturier, a 25-year-old urban planning consultant who abandoned her sweltering office building to work from home, said that hard as it may be to bear, the heat wave offered a lesson.
“Everything was suddenly down. No air conditioning, no electricity,” said Paul De Grauwe, a Belgian economist who was on the train. “I have never been so hot in my life.” “It’s better not to have air-conditioning,” she said, “so we can feel the real effects of climate change.”
Such high temperatures are rare in Belgium, but are becoming more typical, experts say. In the 1990s and 2000s, heat waves of this magnitude occurred once every three or four years, but Belgium has experienced two heat waves in the past two months alone.
On Thursday in France, when the mercury rose to 41 degrees Celsius, or 105.8 degrees Fahrenheit, at 1:42 p.m. local time, Olivier Proust, a forecaster for the French national weather service, said, “Such a situation is historic because all over France heat records are broken.”
By noon in Paris, the Trocadero fountains near the Eiffel Tower had morphed into public swimming pools as people were jumping under the water jets, seeking relief from a heat wave that started on Monday.
“It’s too hot in my apartment; I can’t take it anymore,” said Nadia Zouaoui, a 23-year-old woman who was bathing with her two children in the fountains. “My kids really need to freshen, otherwise it’s unbearable for them.”
The French authorities had issued hundreds of warnings to avoid the devastating death toll the country suffered during the 2003 heat wave, which contributed to almost 15,000 deaths.
“Everyone is at risk with these kinds of temperature,” Health Minister Aghes Buzyn told reporters on Wednesday.
Volunteers could be seen on the streets of Paris on Thursday handing out water bottles, and City Hall introduced restrictions on car because of the high levels of air pollution.
The weather has led to some odd sights in London.
After a sweating man in a half-unbuttoned, pink-striped shirt opened a window in a crowded subway car on Wednesday, sweltering commuters made rare eye contact, trading looks of approval and relief.
And on the outskirts of Hampstead Heath, a vast park in northwestern London, hundreds of people flocked to a greenish pond to seek relief on Thursday, sunbathing, picnicking, reading or listening to music. Dozens insisted on splashing in the pond, even after an announcement that broken bottles posed a danger to swimmers.
“On days like today, I can almost excuse climate change,” Hylston Chambers, 52, said with a smile.
Charlie Edmonds, a 22-year-old freelance choreographer, who was spending the day at the pond on the edge of Hampstead Heath, said, “I’m sweating like crazy, but I’m pleased it’s hot in England.”
The Met Office predicted a break in the heat wave: Temperatures are expected to cool on Friday, said Frank Saunders, the chief meteorologist at the Met Office.
“Conditions will feel much more comfortable for western parts of the U.K. by the time we get to Friday,” he said.
The forecast even called for thunderstorms on Friday. And about 6:30 p.m. Thursday local time, rain began falling in London.