Heatwave exposes Europe's cascading climate risks
by George Lee, https://www.facebook.com/rtenews/ · RTE.ieMeteorologists do not give names to heatwaves in the way they do storms. But if they did, surely "Godzilla", or something equally big, fierce and scary, would have to be near the top of the list for this one.
They are adamant that the intensity of this event would have been "virtually impossible" without human-caused climate change.
Numerous temperature records have fallen across Britain, France and Switzerland.
We have heard all week how a so-called "heat dome" over Europe has locked in very warm air from the Sahara that is unlikely to move away in a hurry.
There is nothing new, of course, about a heat dome causing a European heatwave. Nearly all of Europe's heatwaves occur that way.
This time, however, the world has already warmed by about 1.4C. That meant the air mass over Europe started from a much higher temperature.
So, when the heat dome finally settled, it drove temperatures to levels never before recorded in June.
The World Weather Attribution group concluded that if a similar heat dome event had occurred 50 years ago, the heatwave would have been about 3.5C cooler.
Because of the cooling influence of the Atlantic Ocean and our geographical distance from continental Europe, Ireland escaped the worst of the extreme heat.
Our national fascination with the weather ensured there was plenty of media focus on whether the long-standing June temperature record of 33.3C would be broken.
It wasn't, although several local weather stations did record new highs.
However, counting temperature records is not the most important thing. They are constantly changing.
Trying to keep track of them is like herding cats. Which month? Which year? Which weather station? Which county? Which country? It's enough to make you dizzy.
And anyway, since we all know climate change is happening, aren't new temperature records exactly what we should expect?
That is not to say a new temperature record is uninteresting or, as happened in France this week, not alarming. Of course it is.
But if we become too focused on temperature records, we could miss the most important lesson this Godzilla-like heatwave should have taught us over the past week.
For years, people have tended to think about climate impacts in isolation- a flooding event, a heatwave, a drought, a storm or a wildfire.
But the European heatwave of the past week has exposed just how tightly connected modern societies have become.
Heat no longer simply makes people uncomfortable. It changes electricity demand, affects power generation, strains hospitals, closes schools, disrupts transport, reduces labour productivity, increases insurance claims and places governments under financial pressure - all at the same time.
The impacts of 40.9C heat in Paris this week were far-reaching.
There was a sharp rise in heat-related hospital admissions, intense pressure on emergency services and 55 heat-related emergency deaths within a 24-hour period.
Around 3,500 schools closed completely, while another 10,000 changed their schedules.
There were bans on public drinking in some areas. The Paris Pride festival had to be postponed and sporting events were cancelled.
Three French nuclear reactors had to be shut down, while output from at least four others was reduced because river water used for cooling had become too warm.
Outdoor work in construction, agriculture and manufacturing was also affected, with many employers shifting working hours to avoid the hottest part of the day.
Transport infrastructure came under severe strain too, and not just in France. There were reports of roads softening or buckling in Germany and railway tracks deforming in Austria.
In an interconnected world, disruptions like these can have significant knock-on effects, even in Ireland, hundreds of kilometres away.
Take, for example, the restrictions on French nuclear generation. They indirectly contributed to there being insufficient dispatchable market-based electricity available in Ireland to satisfy peak demand.
Our electricity system could have faced a serious supply shortfall had EirGrid not called on a Temporary Emergency Electricity Generation Unit to help balance the system.
Ireland has become accustomed to importing electricity through interconnectors from the UK.
But the heatwave triggered an electricity supply crunch in Britain as households and businesses switched on air conditioners and fans, while some generating plants experienced outages.
Britain's National Energy System Operator scrambled to import electricity from continental Europe, where supplies were already extremely tight because French nuclear electricity exports had fallen by around 70% over the course of a week.
The upshot was that Britain could not supply all the electricity imports Ireland had been counting on.
At the same time, Irish wind farms were generating very little electricity because winds had fallen away during the prolonged spell of hot, settled weather, while several gas-fired power stations were already out of service for scheduled summer maintenance.
In the end, EirGrid issued a system margin alert and called on the emergency generating unit to operate for four-and-a-half hours to maintain the balance between electricity supply and demand.
The point of all this is that the climate change story needs to become about much more than weather or heatwaves.
It is now also an infrastructure story, an energy story, a public health story, an economic story and, ultimately, a national resilience story.
The experience of the past week in Europe shows that climate change is increasingly about the interconnectedness and resilience of the systems and infrastructure that people depend on every day.
Society needs to prepare not only for more frequent extreme weather but also for the cascading and compound impacts that follow, ensuring that critical systems are resilient enough to cope.
Read more:
What is the 'Omega Block' causing Europe's intense heatwave?
Heat-related deaths increase during European heatwave
Swiss glaciers facing 'enormous' loss from heatwave, says monitor
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions remains absolutely essential. But it is no longer enough on its own.
Even if global greenhouse gas emissions stopped tomorrow morning, some further warming and many of its impacts would still be locked in because of the long lifetime of carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere.
That means heatwaves will continue to become more frequent and, in many cases, more intense.
The challenge we face is no longer simply how to cope with hotter days and warmer nights.
It is how society will cope with what hotter days and warmer nights do to the systems we all depend on.