Tourists in central Athens huddled under mist machines, and zoo animals in Madrid were fed fruit popsicles and chunks of frozen food, as southern Europeans braced for a heat wave Thursday, with a warning of severe conditions coming from the European Union’s space agency.
Emergency measures – including staffing changes, cellphone alerts, and intensified forest fire patrols – were readied or put into effect in several countries as temperatures in parts of Mediterranean Europe were set to reach 45 degrees Celsius (113F) Friday and into the weekend.
In Athens and other Greek cities, working hours were changed for the public sector and many businesses to avoid the midday heat, while air-conditioned areas were opened to the public.
“It’s like being in Africa,” 24-year-old tourist Balint Jolan, from Hungary, told the AP. “It’s not that much hotter than it is currently at home, but yes, it is difficult.”
The high-pressure system, which crossed the Mediterranean from north Africa has been named Cerberus, after the three-headed dog in ancient Greek mythology who guarded the gates to the underworld. It is being tracked by the European Space Agency.
“Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Poland are all facing a major heat wave, with temperatures expected to climb to 48 degrees Celsius on the islands of Sicily and Sardinia – potentially the hottest temperatures ever recorded in Europe” the agency said Thursday.
In the Arctic, a record high temperature of 28.8 degrees Celsius (83.8 degrees F) was measured at Slettness Fyr on the northern tip of the Norway, Norwegian meteorologists said Thursday. This tops a previous record from July 1964 when the thermometer reached 27.6 degrees Celsius (81.7 degrees F).
The United Nation’s World Meteorological Organization on Monday said global temperatures recorded in early July were among the hottest on record.
The impact of extreme summer heat has been brought into focus by research this week that said as many as 61,000 people may have died in Europe's sweltering heatwaves last summer.
"Heat is a silent killer. So this is the main concern that people's lives are at risk," Reuters quoted climate scientist Hannah Cloke, a professor at England's Reading University, as saying.
"Certainly, we should immediately stop pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere," Cloke added, warning that some changes to the climate were already locked in.
Animals are also feeling the strain.
Italian farmers' lobby group Coldiretti said milk production was down by around 10% because cows eat less in the heat, drink huge quantities of water and make less milk.
