Heatwave hell: are soaring temperatures the new normal? – The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:11Every year we're experiencing record-breaking heat pretty much. Our country just isn't prepared for this level of heat. There's also a phenomenon happening called El Nino. It turbocharges heat waves. It's predicted to be a super El Nino. If the El Nino hits, we're likely to have very hot summer next year. The UK has recorded the hottest day on record in May as an early heatwave engulfs Europe and serves as a reminder of how the climate crisis is affecting lives. From the Guardians Today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Hoth. Well, joining me is Helena Horton, Guardian reporter, previously an environment reporter, so well qualified to help us understand this heatwave, these unprecedented temperatures recorded for May.

0:54I don't know about you, Helena, but I was tossing and turning all night. We were close to a tropical night in London where temperatures don't dip below 20 degrees, but that was narrowly averted. But nonetheless, there have been record temperatures recorded in London, but also around the country. Can you give me a sense of how hot it's been? Well, it was record overnight, so it's very, very rare that we get anything up to 20 degrees. It was just nearly 20 degrees in London last night. Actually, we've never had that in May before. So if you did find it hard to sleep, these are temperatures we'd normally have in August.

1:28And obviously in May, we have quite long evenings. So it takes longer for the house to cool down. It's just very uncomfortable. And yes, but over the weekend, we've had temperatures hitting over 30 degrees across the country, across England. And it's officially a heat wave in parts of the southeast of England and the south in general. So that's when you have more than three days over 27 or 28 degrees, depending on where you are. And what's the picture across Europe? Is Europe experiencing the same type of extreme heat as we are? Yes, Northern Europe. So France is also baking at the moment. We're stuck in a pressure system which is sucking in hot air from Africa.

2:07So we have this kind of heat dome over us at the moment. It's going to take a while to dissipate up until the end of next week. Global heating and climate change must be a major factor in all of this. But is there a specific phenomenon as well that's occurring that presumably is caused or worsened by climate change? Not at the moment. So there is an El Nino coming up at the end of the year. It's a weather phenomenon that's caused by the Pacific Ocean heating. And then that changes the jet stream in the way that it impacts weather events. So it turbocharges heat waves and sometimes other things like rainfall or drought.

2:43right we've only had temperatures over 30 degrees in may eight times since the early 1900s every year we're experiencing record breaking heat pretty much um it's accelerating i'm sure you probably remember when we were younger it would be extremely rare to have 30 degree days even in august and now we're having them earlier and earlier and now for the first time we're about to hit 35 in May today, according to the Met Office. And that's a staggering 2.2 degrees Celsius above the record. And normally records are only beaten by a fraction of a degree. So to beat it by two degrees, which looks like it's going to happen today, it's already getting really hot, is absolutely unprecedented.

3:27And forecasters are very surprised that it's happening. Yeah. And all sorts of weather warnings have been issued for various parts of the country, for Europe as well. And this type of heat can be extremely dangerous for the old, the vulnerable, for young people. How great is that risk to life this week? It's pretty high. I mean, I've seen some Americans online commenting saying, oh, it's only 30 degrees Celsius. We have that every day. The difference is our homes aren't built for these temperatures. They're built of brick a lot of the time. They're built to retain heat because we're used to being relatively cold mild country and we don't have air conditioning so that means in old people's homes in schools in you know overcrowded flats in London and across the country where we have people on lower incomes they're the ones who are most at risk of heat stress and they're often people who are already vulnerable and already have health conditions so it's very concerning and our country just isn't prepared for this level of heat every piece of our infrastructure, all of our homes, they're not prepared for it because why would you prepare for something that never happened really before or only happened occasionally, but now it's happening all the time.

4:36And for wildlife, of course, too, we're seeing ponds drying up. If people have a garden or a front garden and they could put a dish of water out, a shallow dish of water out for local wildlife, that probably would be very helpful. I mean, you're right about the infrastructure just being not built to handle this type of weather. I mean, we're going to have to look to Southern Europe and other countries to sort of learn from them because it feels like the infrastructure rail networks just collapse as we reach this this type of heat yes our rail tracks and the stress test up to 27 degrees celsius because that's and that was reasonable because that it was pretty much the average hot summer temperature that we got and that means that they're not reinforced in the same way that that rail tracks are in other countries that are hotter because if you reinforce them too much you end up having issues when it gets cold below freezing um and so basically we're in a happy medium at the moment because we have them um so they don't buckle under the heat well the heat that we used to get and they also don't shatter in winter but now we might have to look at how we can make them more resilient the tarmac on the roads also melts because other countries they mix in polymers and plastics into their tarmac to reinforce it to make sure it doesn't melt in the same way it does here we haven't done that so we haven't had to so why would we spend money doing it when it didn't happen before it was reasonable at the time but now it's looking less reasonable yeah and and so you spoke about how ill-equipped our homes are but you know in the uk we we don't have air conditioning units as is kind of standard in in the us and and that is going to be a huge problem i'm sure many people have been googling air conditioning units over the weekend as we kind of try to endure these astronomic conditions but they themselves are really damaging to the environment as well right and of course it creates a wealth disparity about those who can afford to invest in such technology and those who can't yes um i wouldn't say that air conditioning itself is bad for the environment always so um the government is trying to get us to invest in heat pumps for our homes you can actually buy heat pumps that both heat and cool your house they have the same technology in them as a fridge okay and at the moment the grants only really apply to the ones that heat your home.

6:45I think that they should be applying to the ones that cool your home too, and that the government should be funding retrofitting of these in old people's homes and potentially also schools. But you're right. I mean, it does put pressure on the grid. We haven't switched over to renewable energy for all of our electricity yet. We actually see in America that areas where they have heat waves, the grid often have blackouts or brownouts, they call it, because there's too much demand on the grid due to the amount of people turning on their aircon. right um actually they've managed to sort that out in some states with solar power because obviously when it's hot and sunny um you have more more solar power yeah so yeah so i guess we need more renewables and it'd be great if we could have those heat pumps installed that both heat and call our homes and you mentioned the el nino that is coming at the end of the year i'm troubled here that it's not already here so does that mean more heat waves at this intensity to come over the course of the summer and into next year?

7:41Well the Met Office do think we are likely to have a hot summer because we normally reach our peak temperatures at the end of July start of August so it probably will be potentially hotter than this at least as hot as this at that time of year. It's predicted to be a super El Nino at the end of the year starting in summer and going on right into next year so actually the full effect if it does come to pass it's about 60 % last time I checked if it does come to pass will be in actually summer of 2027 so next summer if the El Nino hits we're likely to have very hot summer next year but this year it will start to have effect also just the very fact of having this kind of extreme heat over Europe makes it more likely to keep compounding because it heats the seas and the oceans right and they're our biggest store that they store and release heat so when you when they get too hot they then start to have a feedback loop where they release more heat, make it hotter outside, then the ocean gets hotter and then you'll have this feedback loop.

8:38So yes, it is likely we're going to have a hot summer and El Niño will have a part to play particularly into next year. Okay, so it sounds like we've got to adapt to this weather that is here to stay. Thank you so much, Helena, for your time. Thank you. That's it for today. My huge thanks again to Helena Horton, Guardian reporter. You can keep up with her reporting over at theguardian.com. And don't miss today's episode of our sister podcast, Politics Weekly. Pippa Kriwa and Kieran Stacey will be answering listener questions as Parliament takes recess. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest.

9:09Today in Focus will be back in your feeds as usual tomorrow morning. The Latest will be back tomorrow night. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. It was produced by Nardis Miljanić. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin and the lead producer was Zoe Hitch.

9:27I'm Kyra. I'm Kyra Sherman. And we are here to tell you about our new show, which is rooted in this feeling that at least I have, I know you have, where, you know, it's kind of like when you wake up in the morning and you pick up your phone and you're just hit in the face with a fire hose of news, right? There's war, there's authoritarianism, our planet is burning. I could go on and on and on. And on and on and on. But like, we're trying to figure out how to manage it, right? Like, how do you manage it? I manage it by leaning in and trying to learn more and trying to figure out, OK, how can I be smarter about this particular topic?

10:04And who can I talk to that's going to make me feel better about it? And who can tell me who's responsible for the mess that I'm reading about? So that's our mission. That's the show. Welcome to Stateside with Kai and Carter. We're a new show from The Guardian. We're talking to big thinkers and the best journalists just trying to understand the world through smart conversation and honest reporting. We don't have billionaires telling us what to say. Stateside with Kyan Carter is out now every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Follow on Apple Podcasts or catch us wherever you watch or listen. This is The Guardian.