Summer 2024 was the hottest on record – globally and for Europe, according to new data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
In the same year Michael Mosley died from heat exhaustion after a walk on the Greek island of Symi, southeastern Europe experienced a record-breaking 66 days of potentially fatal temperatures, known as heat stress days.
That was a significant jump from 2022, when accurate mortality figures were last recorded and 50 heat stress days led to an extra 70,000 deaths continent-wide.
Heat stress occurs when the external temperature is too high for the body to regulate internally, producing dizziness, nausea and eventually loss of consciousness and death.
Sea surface temperatures in the Mediterranean also reached a record daily high of 28.45°C in August. And in the UK, data showed climate change contributed to 20 more rainy days than average for the season (since warmer air can hold more moisture).
Extreme weather events have taken a heavy toll this summer. Two days after the Mediterranean reached a record sea temperature, the entrepreneur Mike Lynch and several others died during a climate-fuelled storm, after his yacht the Bayesian sunk off the coast of Sicily.
The financial costs are growing too. Aviva, the insurance group, says more than 35 per cent of home insurance flood claims in the UK now occur between June and August, something almost unheard of before 2013.
Jason Storah, CEO of General Insurance at Aviva UK & Ireland, warned urban householders to increase lawn or gravel gardens and to move sentimental items to upper levels.
Copernicus data predicts things will get worse in 2025.
Source link : https://www.tortoisemedia.com/2024/10/01/europes-summer-of-new-climate-records-exacts-a-heavy-price/
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Publish date : 2024-10-01 04:10:49
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