This summer, land temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere are generally above average due to heat waves. Among them, Europe, which is accustomed to a temperate oceanic climate with warm winters and cool summers, has a more obvious warming range than other regions.
Temperatures in parts of countries such as Portugal, Spain, France and the United Kingdom exceeded 40 degrees Celsius, 10 to 15 degrees Celsius higher than normal in the same period; Some cities in Portugal reached a record 46.3 degrees Celsius; Germany, Italy, Romania and other countries have experienced heat wave-induced disasters to varying degrees.
What impacts have high temperatures and droughts brought to Europe?
What should Europe do beyond "waiting for the rain"?
Text: Lv Yunmou, European Institute of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations
Source: Lookout Think Tank
1 Endangering ecological security
The "most painful realization" that the heat wave brought to Europe was the drought. According to the drought map drawn up by the EU Drought Observatory, more than two-thirds of the EU is currently threatened by drought, of which 47% are orange (representing the drought warning phase) and 17% are red (i.e. the highest drought alert stage). The UK is also in the midst of drought, with the south-east of England having not received rain for nearly 150 consecutive days.
At the same time, drought and high temperatures form a vicious circle. Shana Villatner, a climatologist at ETH Zurich, notes that moist soils help fend off high temperatures, but persistent droughts cause soil moisture to drop and temperatures to rise easily.
Although regional droughts in summer are more common in Europe (especially southern Europe), the depth and coverage of this drought in Europe is "extraordinary".
According to meteo france, the drought experienced by France was the worst on record, with rainfall in July nearly 85 percent below normal to just 9.7 millimetres, and parts of the Loire river nearly drying up.
In Italy, the water level of the famous Lake Garda has also reached the lowest point on record, and the water level of the Bo River, the longest river in Italy and the water used by one-third of the country's population, has also fallen to a record low of 70 years.
The total capacity of Spain's reservoirs is already less than 40%.
The Netherlands, the world's second-largest exporter of agricultural products (after the United States), also officially declared water shortages in August.
Under the influence of high temperature and drought, Europe is caught in a sea of fire, with forest fires and urban wildfires. The latest data from the European Forest Fire Information System shows that since the beginning of 2022, the fires have burned nearly 740,000 hectares of forest land in the European Union, nearly three times the size of Luxembourg's land area and 76% higher than the last peak of the data (nearly 420,000 hectares in 2017).
Since 2010, seasonal forest fires have gradually invaded central and northern Europe, and some countries that do not normally have fires (such as Romania, Germany, etc.) have also begun to be disturbed by wildfires, AFP reported.
Describing London as a "dry powder keg", the London Fire Brigade handled more than 340 open-air fires in the first week of August alone. Even more exaggerated, the smoke from the Portuguese forest fires has drifted to Madrid, the Spanish capital 300 kilometers away, so much so that on August 16, the Madrid fire department received nearly 400 calls from citizens.
Droughts and fires from heat waves pose enormous challenges to ecosystems. Dutch hydrologist Vanders warned that ecosystems could collapse under the pressure of heat waves and "take years to recover".
First, heat waves threaten biodiversity.
Heat waves make wildfires easier to spread, destroying wildlife habitats on a large scale. The Ornithological Society, a Spanish environmental NGO, estimates that forest fires in Dognana National Park in Spain could endanger up to 77 endangered species. At the same time, the heat wave caused the water level of the river and lake reservoir to drop, the water temperature warmed, and the living environment of marine life was also affected, and there was a large-scale death of fish, corals and algae related to the heat wave in Austria, Spain, France, Germany and other places. According to the Analysis Network, high temperatures, droughts and wildfires could deal a devastating blow to the animal food chain, accelerating "species decline."
Second, fires caused by heat waves can significantly increase carbon emissions and accelerate climate change.
Yepseler, former vice chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, points to another vicious circle: global warming makes fires more likely to occur and spread, while the burning of trees releases more carbon dioxide, accelerating global warming.
According to the European Union's Copernicus Global Environment and Safety Monitoring Programme, France's carbon emissions this summer hit a record high since 2003 due to forest fires. According to statistics, from June to August 11, 2022 alone, the carbon emissions of fires in France are nearly 1 million tons, which is equivalent to the total annual carbon emissions of 750,000 cars.
According to the Global System for Fire Assimilation (GFAS), between June 1 and July 17, the carbon emissions from fires in Spain were higher than the total emissions in June and July in 19 years from 2003 to 2021.
France24 said it could take nearly 30 years for forests to absorb all the carbon released from the fires, and only if "no new fires occur."
Third, the problem of ozone pollution is also worthy of attention.
Fossil fuel emissions from industry and life form ozone under ultraviolet exposure, which is colorless but irritating. The Climate and Clean Air Coalition, an international organization, estimates that ozone pollution kills about 1 million people a year. In heat waves, surface ozone concentrations are significantly higher than normal due to high temperatures, light and poor air flow, which poses a serious hazard to ecosystems and human health.
On the other hand, forest fires can also easily lead to ozone "holes". According to the research results published by Canadian researchers in the journal Science, the smoke generated by the fire will reduce the concentration of ozone in the atmosphere and the content of chlorinated gas, making it easier for ozone "holes" to form.
2 Impact on the economy and people's livelihood
The socio-economic livelihood of Europe has also been affected.
First, the risk of a food crisis rises.
WMO Secretary-General Taras said that more frequent and intense heat waves will have a significant adverse impact on agriculture, exacerbating the already severe food supply and demand tensions in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. According to the European Commission's forecast report, much of the EU is "unusually hot and dry", resulting in food crop yields "well below" normal levels. Among them, the total production of cereal crops such as wheat is expected to decrease by 2.5%, and the yield of crops such as soybeans and sunflower seeds is expected to decrease by 8% to 9%.
On August 18, 2022, about 50 cows from a farm near Turin, Italy, were poisoned after eating sorghum seedlings because the drought destroyed fields and left the cattle without enough food.
France and Romania, the EU's key food exporters, expect agricultural yield losses of 14 percent and 35 percent, and Coldretti, Italy's largest agricultural association, says drought has "destroyed" Italy's rice harvest, with farmers in some parts of Italy losing up to 80 percent of their crops. In addition, the European olive oil, wine, honey, tomato and other grain and agricultural industries are under pressure.
The decline in production has been accompanied by higher prices. Das Gupta, an environmental economist at the Euro-Mediterranean Climate Change Centre, an Italian think tank, said the heat wave would lead to higher food prices for consumers, "people will not be able to afford food expenditures", and the business environment for food operators will deteriorate.
In addition to this, the heat wave also hit the livestock industry in Europe. In the face of soaring food prices, the cost of animal feed has risen significantly, hindering the healthy development of animal husbandry, and the production of commodities such as meat, milk, butter and cream is under great pressure.
European governments have responded to this, with many countries restricting water use and Hungary subsidizing the cost of irrigation and agricultural production for animal feed. The Eu has also taken corresponding action, proposing to postpone and relax the "Standards for Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions" (GAEC) under the Common Agricultural Policy, and it is expected to achieve 1.5 million hectares of land back into production.
But farmers say these short-term measures will not help to solve the root cause of the problem, and with each passing year, the drought will become more severe.
Second, trade and industry have been hit.
Under the heat wave, many important water transport routes in many European countries have been affected by the decline in water levels. The Rhine, the largest river in Western Europe, known as the "European Industrial Lifeline", originates in the Alps, runs through Switzerland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and other European industrial centers, and finally flows into the North Sea near Rotterdam. Recent heat waves have severely damaged the Capacity of the Rhine, and its "choke point" Khao Bout water level – the narrow section of the river between Wiesbaden and Koblenz – has been lowered to below 40 cm in early August (usually, a kaub water level below 130 cm is a low water level).
At low water levels, large ships face safety risks and ship load capacity declines significantly. This has brought to a standstill trade in European commodities such as parts, chemicals and coal, which are highly dependent on water transport, adding a lot of trouble to European industrial production. The Kiel Institute for World Economic Research, a German think tank, said a month of persistently low water levels on the Rhine would reduce German industrial output by about 1 percent.
In this case, many traders are forced to opt for road and rail transport instead, but these methods are not cost-effective compared to water transport. According to the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine (ICPR), to replace the capacity of a transport ship, hundreds of trucks or hundreds of train carriages need to be assembled.
To make matters worse, because the Rhine is mainly fed by glaciers, the water level generally does not reach its annual low point until autumn, which means that the rhine navigation dilemma will become more and more serious in the coming months.
In addition, the European Union has planned a "green transition" in the field of transport, which intends to increase the volume of water cargo transportation by 25% by 2030 and by 50% by 2050. The current situation has called into question the stability and safety of waterways, and the EU's ambitions for transformation will be hindered.
Third, exacerbate the energy crisis.
Heat waves have not only increased the energy consumption required for people to cool down, but also reduced the power generation of hydropower, thermal power and nuclear power plants in many European countries. Kresson, head of global European power analysis at Standard & Poor's, said that compared with the average for the same period, hydropower generation in Western Europe fell by 20% in 2022. According to Agence France-Presse, Hydropower generation in Italy is down 40% from last year, and Portugal's dams generate only a quarter of the same amount of electricity as in the same period last year.
Norway has abundant hydropower resources, is an important power supplier of the European Union, and the United Kingdom in 2021 to open submarine cables, power export capacity equivalent to 2% -3% of the UK's demand this winter, known as "European battery". But as the water level of Norwegian reservoirs has recently fallen below the seasonal average, the Norwegian government announced that it will consider restricting external electricity exports and "prioritizing replenishment reservoirs", which is undoubtedly worse for the European energy market, which is already in short supply.
High temperatures also have a negative impact on the safe operation of nuclear power plants. Due to the increase in river temperatures, lower water levels, and the normal operation of the cooling system of nuclear power plants were affected, France's main power company, EDF, was forced to limit nuclear power production. Three nuclear power plants in Switzerland have cut production for the same reason.
In terms of traditional thermal power, due to the damage to the capacity of the Rhine Mentioned above, many energy groups can only choose "not economical" road and rail transportation methods, and some companies are even forced to "airlift coal" to meet emergency needs. German energy giant Uniper warned that it would have to cut production due to insufficient coal supply at its Staudinger plant, a tributary of the Rhine.
While production has fallen, Electricity prices in Europe have repeatedly reached new highs. On August 22, the European benchmark electricity price German benchmark load electricity price exceeded the 700 euro per MWh mark, more than 1400% higher than the average price between 2010 and 2020. Saxo Bank's head of foreign exchange strategy said that European electricity prices have soared from "terrible" to "ridiculous" levels.
Under the natural and man-made disasters, the EU's energy crisis has become more and more difficult to solve.
3 Threat to life and health and social stability
The impact of heat waves on people's lives and health is more direct.
Heat waves can damage the body's ability to regulate temperature, in addition to directly leading to heat cramps, heat exhaustion and other heat stroke conditions, but also increase the symptoms and risk of other types of diseases such as cardiovascular diseases. At the same time, high temperatures also reduce air circulation, making pollutants in the air more likely to be deposited, increasing the incidence of respiratory diseases such as asthma.
On August 16, 2022, high temperatures and droughts depleted the waters of the Loire River in France.
Fire damages air quality. French media reported that in the fire in the French province of Gironde in mid-July, more than 800,000 residents of the southwestern city of Bordeaux were affected by harmful gases containing particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide. High-temperature areas in Germany, Spain, Portugal and other countries have seen an abnormal surge in the number of deaths (after deducting the impact of covid-19). However, it is difficult to count the specific number of people killed by heat waves. Experts at the German Meteorological Institute's Center for Medical and Meteorological Research say deaths caused by high temperatures are generally indirect, so it takes months or even years of research and analysis to accurately calculate the fatality rate of heat waves.
Heat waves are also a test of social stability.
Different social groups are affected by heat waves to varying degrees, with infants, the elderly, outdoor workers and people with pre-existing diseases more vulnerable to heat waves. As WMO Secretary-General Taras put it, "the elderly and the sick suffer the most". Homeless people, who are widespread in Europe, are more vulnerable to heat waves, and households that cannot afford to install air conditioning or high energy bills are even more vulnerable to heat waves.
Can infrastructure stand the test?
Under the heat wave, many infrastructure in Europe have also suffered from heat stroke. Due to overheating of the tracks, trains in many parts of Europe were forced to be delayed and cancelled, asphalt roads began to soften, and some hospitals had to stop making outpatient appointments because they did not install air conditioning.
The tarmac at the RAF base was heated. Transport Secretary Grant Sharps said much of Britain's infrastructure was built in the Victorian era and could not withstand such temperatures.
In addition, in the case of drier soils, surface plants are forced to absorb deeper groundwater to survive, which can lead to insufficient underground reserves of water for agriculture, industry and cities.
The heat wave made Western politicians "sweat in the air-conditioned room."
The high temperature has had a comprehensive impact on transportation, energy and food security, further pushing up the prices of basic commodities in Europe, exacerbating the inflation dilemma, and making people's livelihood problems more prominent. According to the analysis of the US media political news network, Europe will hold a number of elections in the autumn, and the heat wave may intensify public dissatisfaction in advance.
Recently, a Spanish agricultural organization announced a new demonstration plan. A poll released in France in August showed that nearly 70 percent of the people surveyed, half of whom are Macron's supporters, said the French government was "not doing enough" to deal with the gas change. The public also does not buy the government's "firefighting" measures. In the Piedmont region of northern Italy, more than 170 cities have issued "water decrees" prohibiting water for irrigation gardens, car washes, etc., causing public dissatisfaction. In an interview with the media, a Spanish farmer said that people are pessimistic about the mood of the government's bailout measures, "the political solution is always late and bad" and "all we have left to do is wait for the rain."
4 Heat waves threaten to become European "regulars"
It is foreseeable that if effective action is not taken, the heat wave may become a "regular customer" in Europe.
Vortard, a climatologist at the French Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences, said the frequency and intensity of heatwaves have increased significantly in recent years. In Europe, for example, the 10 hottest years in the UK since 1884 have been after 2000, and germany has seen an upward trend in the number of hot days above 30 degrees Celsius per year since 1950.
Dr. Carter, an expert at the World Resources Institute, a think tank in the United States, said that the heat this summer was "not accidental", but the beginning of a future megatrend. The rate of warming in Europe is also not proportional to the global level, about twice the global average.
In fact, the reasons for the heat wave are comprehensive. Slower ocean currents, slow movement in high-pressure zones, and a reduction in monsoons due to narrowing temperatures between the Arctic and the equator have all contributed to the formation of heat waves, which are difficult to attribute to a single cause. Of course, climate change is undoubtedly one of the important factors.
WMO Secretary-General Petri Talas said he had no doubt about the top cause of the heat wave, "the world is breaking the heat record due to climate change". Nikos Christidis, a climate attributist at the Met Office, said that under the same conditions, the current time in the UK is 10 times more likely to have a temperature of 40 degrees Celsius than under natural climatic conditions that are not affected by humans.
All countries should realize that climate change is a common threat and challenge for all mankind, and should break the concept of "circle" and work together to deal with it.
The European Parliament's research institute recently released a report entitled "Sustainable Development in the Geopolitical Era", saying that the current concept of "sustainable development" is changing from the concept of "global development" after the Cold War to the concept of "national security", and the focus of attention has also changed from "working together to meet global challenges" to "reducing dependence with transformation". This argument actually injects geopolitical confrontation thinking into the issue of human cooperation and further erodes the common foundation of global governance, which is worth vigilance.
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