Mediterranean Sea temperatures surged in a marine heatwave during June, putting some species under threat as Europe swelters under record-setting and deadly hot weather.
The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said sea surface temperatures on 22 June were more than 5C above the seasonal average. Waters off Spain hit a record 30C on Tuesday, according to Spanish forecaster AEMET.
It comes after the summit of Mont Blanc, western Europe’s highest mountain, remained above freezing for a whole day for the first time in history – another hint at the pace of climate change.
Italy limited outdoor work, France closed schools and Turkey battled wildfires on Tuesday in a heatwave that meteorologists said was “exceptional” for arriving so early in summer.
Spain confirmed its hottest June on record, while temperatures passed 40C in some of its cities on Tuesday.
Europe is known to be heating up at twice the global average speed and is the world’s fastest-warming continent, according to Copernicus.
“What is exceptional … but not unprecedented is the time of year,” said World Meteorological Organization spokesperson Clare Nullis.
Europe is experiencing extreme heat “which normally we would see later on in the summer”, she said.
Some countries issued health alerts and trade unions attributed the death of a construction worker near Bologna on Monday to the heat.
Outdoor work was banned in some Italian regions during the hottest hours of the day as Italy issued heatwave red alerts for 17 cities, including Milan and Rome.
Power outages, probably caused or aggravated by spiking electricity consumption from air conditioners, were reported in central Florence and in the northern city of Bergamo. In Sicily, a woman with a heart condition reportedly died while walking in Bagheria, news agencies reported.
In Barcelona, authorities were looking into whether the death of a street sweeper at the weekend was heat-related.
The Red Cross set up an air-conditioned “climate refuge” for residents in Malaga.
Extreme heat can kill by causing heat stroke, or aggravating cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, with older people being among the most vulnerable.
Turkey continued to battle the wildfires that forced the temporary evacuation of around 50,000 residents in areas surrounding Izmir earlier this week.
In France, nearly 1,900 schools were closed.
In Spain, the average temperature was 23.6C last month. Copernicus said June probably ranks among the five warmest in the country’s history. England had its hottest June since at least 1884, the Met Office said.
A Paris-Milan rail service was disrupted because of a mudslide on the French side of the Alps, with full service not expected to be fully restored until mid-July.
The top floor of the Eiffel Tower was closed, 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.
The scorching temperatures have raised the risk of field fires as farmers in France, the European Union’s biggest grain producer, start harvesting this year’s crop, with many working through the night to avoid peak afternoon temperatures.
In the Mediterranean, the most intense warming during June’s “marine heatwave” was in the western area including the Balearic Sea, off Spain, and the Tyrrhenian Sea, off western Italy.
“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 3C to 6C higher than the average between 1982-2023, which was used as a reference period.
“We expected these sea temperatures in August,” Spyrou said. “Some species will not be able to reproduce or survive in these conditions, especially in increasing temperatures.”
Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
