00:00Let's get some more expert analysis on the heatwave with Peter Thorne,
00:04Professor and Director of Icarus Climate Research Centre at the Maynooth University in Ireland.
00:09Thank you so much for being with us, Professor Thorne.
00:12So, could you just tell us how unusual this heatwave is for Europe for this time of year,
00:17and how dangerous could it be?
00:20This is unusual. All extremes are by their nature unusual,
00:25but it is becoming increasingly common for this type of weather to occur across Europe at this time of year,
00:33and the impacts are like in the segment you had before.
00:37There will be pictures of people frolicking on the beach,
00:40but the hidden cost to people who are medically vulnerable to the very old, to the very young, cannot be
00:47overstated.
00:49Now, Europe is often called the fastest warming continent.
00:53Why is the continent being hit so hard by heatwaves? Is it climate change?
00:59Well, the heatwave will have a very large climate change component.
01:03How large will undoubtedly be looked over forensically by experts in event attribution studies over the coming days and weeks.
01:13But fundamentally, Europe is warming the fastest in the world.
01:16That's partly because the Arctic is warming very fast,
01:19partly because we've removed the atmospheric particulates that were causing pollution,
01:25which acted as a weak parasol on Europe,
01:28and partly because these type of dynamic events appear to be becoming much more frequent in Europe.
01:34These heat domes, these high pressures that get stuck,
01:38and just generate more and more heat day by day.
01:41Indeed, and we often focus on the daytime highs, don't we, in terms of temperature.
01:46And what about the nighttime, when that stays hot too?
01:49We're expecting some quite tropical nights, certainly here in London, in the next couple of days.
01:54Why does that make the heatwave more dangerous?
01:58So, the human body needs time to recover, and that recovery time is at night when we're sleeping.
02:04And if it's not cool enough at night, the body does not get that opportunity to recover.
02:13And that's when it gets really quite dangerous, particularly for the medically vulnerable,
02:19the very elderly, the very young, who are very vulnerable to these heat health impacts.
02:24And for people watching, what would be the sort of top one, two or three things,
02:28just to really make sure that they're keeping themselves safe in these hot temperatures?
02:33So, during the day, counterintuitively maybe, it's about keeping shutters closed,
02:40curtains closed, windows closed, and then opening them up at night when it's that little bit cooler.
02:46It's about finding cool areas to be, the library, the gym, wherever it is,
02:53a coffee shop that has air conditioning.
02:55It's about finding that relief, even if for a short period of time, that really matters.
03:02That gives your body the chance to recover.
03:05But obviously, for some people, this isn't possible,
03:08particularly some of the most vulnerable in society.
03:12Indeed. Well, thank you very much for that very helpful information.
03:14Good to talk to you, Peter Thorne,
03:16Professor and Director of the Icarus Climate Research Centre
03:18at Maynooth University in Ireland.
