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GENEVA: Periods of extreme heat are becoming more frequent, intense and longer-lasting as climate change warms the planet, the UN weather agency said on Tuesday, noting changes since the famously hot European summer of 1976.
Parts of Europe are enduring their fifth heatwave of a summer marked by drought, wildfires and record-breaking temperatures.
“Extreme heat is becoming more frequent, more intense, it’s lasting longer, and covering much wider areas than in the cooler climates of the past,” John Kennedy, the World Meteorological Organisation’s head of climate information, told a press briefing in Geneva.
Kennedy said the current pattern of heat across Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent, reflected the interaction between a persistent pattern of high-pressure systems across the Northern Hemisphere and a warmer climate.
