Extreme heat in Europe becoming new normal

Europe experienced one of its hottest Mays on record last month under an unusually early heatwave that the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service warned is becoming the “new normal”, Euronews writes.

It was the second-hottest May on record globally, and Britain, France, Ireland and Portugal broke their own records as a “heat dome” of warm air from northern Africa pushed temperatures well above normal levels across western Europe.

“The month was marked by a rapid transition from much cooler-than-average conditions to one of the most intense heatwaves ever observed this early in the year in western Europe,” the Copernicus Climate Change Service said in its May bulletin.

The “unusually early and intense heatwave demonstrates how quickly climate extremes are becoming the new normal rather than the exception”, said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium–Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which operates Copernicus.

As noted, the rapid transition likely increased impacts on populations, leaving little time for people, as well as crops and ecosystems, to acclimatize to much higher temperatures.