There must be urban locations well above 40 C now if weather stations are recording 39.1 C. This European episode is one of the most worrisome yet, between the magnitude of the spike and the sheer size of the affected population. Last summer’s episode on the west coast was not as significant by either measure.
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40.2ºC at Heathrow…
Temps hitting 40 degrees celcius in the UK? That is insane. I never thought that would be possible.
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And still none of the candidates to be prime minister think that the climate is a priority.
What will it take? The Thames boiling? The M25 melting? Henley being cancelled?
Hope spring eternal.
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Just shows these scientists know nothing. I’m just going to head off to the shops (across the street)…
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Hopefully this can be controlled, but if not, London burning could do it.
https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/1549427106010091520?t=tFSmbdcMBE_-aq9i5H-9ZA&s=19
My house (1930’s semi-detached) is at least 5 degrees cooler than outside temperature. That insulation for cold weather works just as well for the warm weather. Taking the air con out of the equation, I find UK house much more comfortable in warm weather than Aussie houses which are more often than not very poorly insulated.
I think someone above mentioned design of houses to maximise air flow and to release heat quickly so that the house has a chance to cool down overnight, and that would probably play a much bigger part in such a comparison if there were multiple 40 degree days. The UK house would effectively work like an old school brick storage heater which is probably not what you want.
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Absolutely fascinating discussion here on the unsustainability of suburbs.
The episode talks more about financial implications that Climate (this is a Climate Change podcast series), but if you keep that relationship in your head while you listed to it then it’s even more frustrating.
As UK and Europe got fried, here in Bangkok, we faced the worst torrential rains and flooding in quite a while today. The rain is still coming down and is forecast throughout the next couple of days. Dead cars everywhere blocking roads and causing a chain reaction of more dead vehicles because of being stationary. Gridlock. No rescue services in sight.
Ironically I drive a non eco-friendly diesel 4 wheeler just for these events, and today was the worst I can remember. Driving down my home lane was about 50cm deep and had water sloshing on the windshield while having to avoid floating trash and debris. I cannot remember the last time it was this bad.
This thread can get a bit depressing sometimes, so here’s some positive news to come out of the crisis. I hate ties…
Japan did that as well a few years back…
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In a week’s time monsoon will be over, at least according to the calendar. We usually have light to moderate showers till middle of October. So far we had negligible amount of rains. The drought will affect the current paddy harvest which amounts to a third of our yearly yield, 12 million tonnes.
This is really terrible, mate… Do you expect a famine now, or is the situation still manageable?
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So far we are using groundwater for irrigation. That means dangerously dwindling of the water table and further troubles down the line, our winter crops need irrigation from groundwater. Also, since most of the irrigation projects are diesel-powered, it’s a huge burden on the farmers. Our worst fear is a late monsoon which will totally ruin the harvest.
There will certainly be another price rise which will affect millions. However, I don’t see a famine even in the worst-case scenario. That’s how far we have come since independence.
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