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As reports of extreme heat in France emerged, with players at the 2024 Paris Olympics being given extra breaks to cope with the heat, a new analysis has painted a sobering picture.
It shows that the July heatwave that gripped France and other Mediterranean countries would have been “virtually impossible” without human-induced climate change.
Once considered impossible, anthropogenic warming has made these heatwaves relatively common due to human-caused warming and is expected to occur about once a decade.
The analysis by the World Weather Attribution (WWA), an international effort to analyse and communicate the possible influence of climate change on extreme weather events, suggests that such events could become more frequent with further warming.
“If the atmosphere wasn’t overloaded with emissions from burning fossil fuel, Paris would have been about 3°C cooler and much safer for sport,” Friederike Otto, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science at Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London, said in a statement.
Extreme heat had engulfed several countries in Southeastern Europe, Türkiye, and parts of the Middle East from June 3 to June 27 2024, with a peak intensity observed between June 11 and 14, 2024.
In July, extreme heat hit several countries in Europe, including in Greece and Italy, according to ClimaMeter, which provides a rapid framework for understanding extreme weather events in a changing climate.
On July 19, 2024, temperatures touched 40°C in Andalucia and Spain. Greece witnessed its second heatwave this summer, with the mercury reaching up to 43°C. During the last 10 days of July, southern and eastern Europe experienced extreme heat, with temperatures increasing to 44°C.
The July heatwave caused at least 21 deaths in Morocco after temperatures reached 48°C. Wildfires were recorded in Greece and North Macedonia.
Many people across the Mediterranean do not have the luxury of ice packs, air conditioning or cooling breaks at work, Otto added.
Otto and her colleagues analysed average July temperature, focusing on a region that includes Morocco, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece.
They then compared how heatwave events have changed between today’s climate and the cooler pre-industrial climate to quantify human impacts. The analysis concluded that heatwaves were made 1.7-3.5 ºC hotter than in the pre-industrial world.
The heat in July was driven by a “heat dome”, a large-scale high-pressure area that forms in the atmosphere known to push warm air toward the surface and trap it below. This system, which began developing in the first week of July in the Mediterranean, expanded into central and eastern parts of Europe in the following weeks.
The WWA has warned that elite Olympic athletes who are not acclimated to heat may see a decline in performance, and an increase in heat-related illness, such as heat cramps and exhaustion, as suggested in a few studies.
“Extreme conditions are expected on August 1st throughout the Spanish and French Mediterranean coast. 38 million people will be exposed, and 140 million will have severe conditions,” Dominic Royé, researcher and head of data science at the Climate Research Foundation (FIC), wrote on X.
A heatwave impacted the western Mediterranean region in late April 2023. In Portugal and mainland Spain (minus the Canary and Balearic Islands), temperatures broke historical records for the month when they reached 36.9 °C and 38.8 °C, respectively. Similar extremes were also experienced in Morocco and Algeria, where temperatures exceeded 40°C in several locations, according to a 2024 npj Climate and Atmospheric Science.