Much of Western Europe is suffering through an intense spring heat wave, with unusually hot temperatures from the UK and Ireland in the north, through Germany and France and all the way down into Spain and Italy.
The unseasonable spring weather is the result of a "heat dome." This strong, slow-moving high-pressure atmospheric system from northern Africa is trapping hot air over Europe, much like a lid on a boiling pot of water.
Such weather systems have become more common in Europe over the 25 years, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, fueling more frequent and extreme heat waves.
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"Temperatures on this scale were once exceptional even at the height of summer," said Friederike Otto, a professor of climate science at Imperial College London, in a statement. "This record-breaking heat has the fingerprints of climate change all over it."
