Fifth Heat Dome Expands Across Europe: 40°C+ Highs Target Western and Central Europe
5th Heat Dome Expands Across Europe: 40°C+ Target Western and Central Europe
A powerful high-pressure ridge is locking the fifth major Heat Dome of the season over continental Europe, pushing afternoon temperatures past 40°C across France, the UK, Italy, Central Europe, and the Balkans. The heat dome traps warm air, leading to extreme heat and tropical nights with minimal relief. Forecasts show peak temperatures of 42-44°C in Spain, 40-43°C in France, and 38-39°C in England, with the heat expanding eastward over the weekend. The article explains the atmospheric dynamics and health impacts of heat domes, emphasizing the risks of prolonged exposure and high humidity.
The heat dome works like a lid on a pot: the extensive dome traps warm air at all levels underneath, with layers sinking toward the ground, making the air mass anomalously warm at the lowest elevations and extremely hot near the surface.
- Y-bar
If we ever manage to halt this accelerating crisis we should seriously consider a modern-day equivalent of the Nuremberg trials. Thousands upon thousands needlessly dead, https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/08/1152766 (from 2024)
- throwaway_7274
Somehow, somehow, everyone’s heads are still in the sand. Desperately trying to bury them deeper. It’s like CICO denialism.
I expect this to be a deeply unpopular take here, but solutionism will fail. Magic technology will not come to save us. All of our industrial tekhne has been in the service of rolling down the stored-energy hill faster and faster. To put the genie back in the bottle, to take apart the CO2 and turn it back into hydrocarbons, we’d have to do more work than everything that was done in the last two centuries. And that’s an extremely conservative lower bound.
It’s so dire. I don’t think most people understand that everything around them is made out of petroleum. Not just your ability to travel, or your clothes. Your food is made of petroleum. Your institutions are made of petroleum. Your gender equality is made of petroleum. Your freedom is made of petroleum.
There is no putting this thing in reverse. If the AI doesn’t get us first, thermodynamics will topple all of this.
- wing-_-nuts
I've been reading up on the inevitable collapse of the AMOC (the potsdam institute has a number of really good videos covering the subject).
Everyone hears 'winters will be up to 10C cooler', but few realize that this will also cause the jet stream to be more wavy, and exacerbate the number of heat waves as well.
Sad that europe's mild climate is about to get a whole lot worse...
- thibaut_barrere
Just in France, cost of this year heat waves has been estimated between 10 and 15 billion euros (figure shared by a ministre today).
- yread
It will probably be warm but this is from the GFS model that was forecasting 50 degrees during the last heat wave. Apparently, it tends to "overegg temperature projections for Europe in the summer by around 2-2.5c. ... it dries out soil too fast in its models."
https://www.reddit.com/r/weather/comments/1um7tyn/sometimes_...
- fl4regun
Seems likely that within our lifetime multiple countries in europe may turn into deserts, and there is little we can do against it except for maybe attempt to terraform the climate by seeding clouds or changing ecosystem flora to something resilient in the face of 40C weather. Losing a huge amount of food production would be my greatest concern.
- Noaidi
"2027 is likely to be WAY worse than this 2026 in terms of extreme heat, drought, fires, crop losses. WAY worse. In the Northern hemisphere, we have half a year to prepare for next summer and save some lives.
Everyone is acting like 2026 is a blip. No: far worse is to come."
https://nitter.catsarch.com/JKSteinberger/status/20874034329...
- inglor_cz
As of now, our worst problem in Central Europe seems to be drought. Some of the mightiest rivers of the continent are barely there. You can walk across the Danube, the Rhine or the Wisla in some places, drenching yourself a bit, but never losing contact with the bottom.