Chilling warning over UK 'silent killer' as temperatures top 48C in Europe
A devastating heatwave "silently killing" people in Southern Europe due to climate change could arrive in the UK this summer, an expert today warned.
Professor Hannah Cloke OBE, a top climate scientist, is "frightened" by the temperatures approaching 50C throughout Europe this summer.
The searing heat, which has killed people and caused devastating forest fires, has led to 16 Italian cities become subject of rare, red weather alerts.
British tourists taking their holidays across southern Europe have been warned of a "significant" risk to life. Prof Cloke, academic at University of Reading, said the situation must be a trigger for the world to take action against climate change - even if it might be too late.
A woman cools off with a mini fan in Rome as the heatwave grips Italy (AFP via Getty Images)She told Mirror: "Last summer in Europe, the estimate is more than 61,000 people died in the heatwave, and we've got similar conditions here. So I imagine it's very dangerous indeed. We've had some warning of it, but people aren't prepared for this extreme heat.
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"It's in a society where we don't have the right housing, we don't have the right infrastructure, the right conditions to deal with some of these very, very high temperatures, and that's piggybacking on the risk from forest fire and floods.
"We've seen people dying around the world from intense rainfall flooding as well. That's obviously a risk from from extreme heat. As a climate scientist, I'm frightened by this. These temperatures are very high. We have seen them coming.
"They all were as we've been predicting, we know that this is gonna get worse and worse in the future as well. So this is just really the beginning of some of these extreme weather events."
Temperatures have exceeded 40C in parts of Spain, including Madrid (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)Temperatures exceeded 40C in July last year in the UK - the first time that has ever happened since record began. It is only chance, Prof Cloke says, that the scorching heatwave gripping Italy, Spain, Greece and other countries hasn't made its way across the UK yet - but it still could, this summer.
"We've been a bit lucky this summer. I think the position of the jet stream has meant that we've got these this cool weather and I know that many people are complaining about it, because they'd like to have a little bit more sunshine," Prof Cloke added.
The devastating heatwave is a significant risk to people health (AFP via Getty Images)"But actually I think we're very, very lucky because otherwise we'd be sitting in that hot African air. That's really very dangerous. Indeed. The jet stream just happens to be in in this position, which is bringing that cooler weather across the UK.
"Last summer, it wasn't like that. We were experiencing that air being drawn off over the UK so easily. We could be in that situation again, where we see this really hot air come across the UK. We're certainly not ready for extreme heat here in the UK.
"I mean, we have some predictions of what's going to happen for the rest of the summer. But they are quite uncertain. So, there's always the chance that we could get one of those high pressure systems and it could get drawn up. At the moment it's looking like we won't have a heatwave at the rest of the this summer but we can't quite tell yet.
"Weather forecasting systems are not quite that good yet. So we have to prepare anyway for the certainly, whether that's next summer, or the summer after that.
"Heatwaves are nearly always fatal. It's not always as visible, like a roaring flood that kind of sweeps people away, or traps people in tunnels. That's horrific. It really does silently kill. So we do see hundreds, sometimes thousands of people die, so thousands of people died in the heatwave in the UK last time.
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"That wouldn't be acceptable then in many, many other walks of life if you had thousands of people dying from something, maybe like a fire like Grenfell Tower. People take notice and take action. So why are we not taking action now?"
A woman fans herself in a park in Italy, where 16 cities are on red alert due to the weather (Amer Ghazzal/REX/Shutterstock)
A child plunges his hat into a fountain as he waits for the start of Pope Francis' Angelus prayer in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican (AP)Italy is currently in the critical zone, with its first recorded death attributed to the deadly "Cerberus" heatwave, which is named after the three-headed dog of Ancient Greek myth and the hound guarding the lower circles of hell as detailed in Dante's Inferno.
The 44-year-old road worker was on the job when he collapsed in Lodi, southeast of Milan, amid reports of 45C heat. Two Italian brothers, six and seven, also indirectly fell victim to the extreme heat when they drowned in an irrigation basin after seeking a cooling sanctuary from the atmospheric oven in Manfredonia, on Italy's eastern coast.
The searing heat is causing devastating forest fires, particularly in Spain and its Canary Islands (Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)And in Rome yesterday British tourists were spotted fainting under the sheer pressure of the searing sun. Concerned locals were seen dishing out water bottles in the hopes of alleviating the severity of the weather.
There appear to be no signs of the rolling heat slowing, with southern Spain bracing for a 44C high today, the same as is expected in Greece this week. The conditions are expected to last another two weeks, with Cyprus (41C), Croatia (39C) and France (34C) all to be affected.
But in the UK, following a largely wet weekend, showers linger today and into tonight. It'll be particularly windy too, especially along the east coast, throughout this evening.
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