Extreme heat and wildfire alerts across Europe as killer temperatures break records: Latest updates – UK Times

Temperatures reached 40-41C in some areas of France, which led to the top floor of the Eiffel Tower closed on Tuesday and Wednesday, disappointing scores of visitors.

“I tried to get all organised before our departure and the result is nonsense,” said Laia Pons, 42, a teacher from Barcelona who booked Eiffel tickets for her family three years ago.

When temperatures rise, the puddled iron used to build the Eiffel Tower expands in size and tilts slightly, with no impact on its structural integrity, according to its website.

Nearly 1,900 schools were closed, up from around 200 on Monday, in France.

A Greek scientist has warned that some species are under threat due to a marine heatwave in the Mediterranean.

“We have seen temperatures we were expecting in the middle of August being recorded in June and … this is why it is considered a record year for temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea,” Christos Spyrou, associate researcher at the Academy of Athens research centre for atmospheric physics, said.

He said that the average sea temperatures in June were 3-6 degrees higher than the average between 1982-2023, which was used as a reference period.

“We expected these sea temperatures in August,” Spyrou said, adding specific temperatures were not yet available.

Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, heating up at twice the global average, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, with extreme heatwaves starting earlier in the year and persisting for longer.

“What is exceptional … but not unprecedented is the time of year,” said World Meteorological Organisation spokesperson Clare Nullis, adding that extreme heat episodes were seen now “which normally we would see later on in the summer.”

Higher temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea tend to reinforce extreme temperatures over land areas, she said.

Large swathes of the UK and Europe are sweltering through a heatwave, which could be exacerbated by a heat dome.

Here is how that weather phenomenon works:

The deaths of two workers, in Spain and Italy, have been blamed on the extreme heatwave.

In Spain, authorities are investigating the death of a Barcelona street sweeper who had been cleaning the city’s old town centre on Saturday afternoon. The woman died later that day at home, her sister told the Antena 3 TV station.

Near Bologna, one of the cities under a heat alert on Tuesday, the 46-year-old owner of a construction company collapsed and died while repaving a school parking lot, state-run RAI reported. An autopsy was being conducted to determine the cause, but heat was suspected.

Spanish and Portuguese authorities have confirmed record-breaking June temperatures.

A record high of 46C was reported in the town of El Granado in southern Spain on Saturday, according to Spain’s national weather service.

In Portugal, authorities confirmed the 46.6C reached in the town of Mora, on Sunday was also a new June record.