Western Europe is going through its first heat wave this year, very intense and early. We also get a portion of this African heat in Poland. Atmospheric physicist Dr. Joanna Rymszyuska-Michalak stated in “Wake Up and Weekend” that in connection with the climate crisis, more and more heat waves await us, they will be longer and more intense.
Dr. Joanna Rymiesowska-Michalak described the heat wave currently sweeping Europe and reaching Poland as “unprecedented” and “very early”. She added that the first heat waves in Western Europe usually come in July. “A black dream come true for all climatologists and meteorologists,” she said. As the atmospheric physicist emphasized in “Wakes and Weekends”, countries in the western part of the continent, where the temperature significantly exceeds 40 degrees Celsius, are “places very close to us, where we no longer have favorable conditions for living and running” .
And in the French city of Biarritz, on Saturday, it hit a record high of almost 43 degrees Celsius. The previous record was 40.6 degrees Celsius, and meteorologists from Spain, where the temperature reaches 44 degrees, reported several days ago that this is the oldest heat wave in this country in four decades.
“Heat waves will be more frequent, longer and more intense.”
Remiszewska-Michalak noted that this is a “climate crisis scenario”. What does this mean for us? “Heat waves will be more frequent, longer and more intense,” she explained. Heat, above all, has a negative impact on human and animal health. One of the participants in an interview on TVN24 stated that we expect early deaths and a decrease in operational efficiency.
– She emphasized that what we fear in the context of climate change is migrations from places on Earth that are not really suitable for life. At the same time, she mentioned Africa, Arabia and India, which – as you remember – experienced a very hot May with temperatures around 50 degrees Celsius.
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She noted that for some high values on Poland’s thermometers, which are more typical for warm countries, they may look attractive, but that they have an “economic and health dimension and it is difficult to say which is more important.”
– It is believed that such high temperatures, observed in France, reduce the productivity of people at work by 50 percent, so this already has a huge economic dimension – the specialist explained. She noted that the financial consequences of a heat wave are not immediately clear, but that “all the effects of climate disasters have a significant impact on GDP.” She pointed out that the high demand for electricity due to the heat “begins in a vicious cycle.”
Main image source: PAP / EPA / Caroline Bloomberg