By: Jenin Kaddoura Summary. Intense heat waves take place in southern Europe every summer as temperatures continue to rise. Southern European countries are also known as “Mediterranean Europe” as they have coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea, and thus foster a Mediterranean climate. This climate is characterized by dry and hot summers, which further intensifies any risks of climate change. Hardships like heat waves, wildfires, and droughts are likely to happen more frequently and intensely as the earth continues to warm. This summer, extreme and deadly wildfires raged across southern Europe, destroying villages and forests. Countries like Spain also saw record-breaking high temperatures, while other countries asked pregnant employees and elderly women to stay at home. Aside from the naturally dry climate, scientists believe that the burning of fossil fuels like oil and coal and the abandonment of rural areas is what worsens these events. Furthermore, wild growth significantly affected unmanaged agricultural land, and contributed to the quicker spread of the fires as well. On the other hand, forest ecosystems and biodiversity are also greatly impacted by these longer and harsher heat waves. The earth’s climate crisis encompasses heat-related and other corresponding issues, therefore, a big part of the contributing factors to the issue are human-caused. Human activities and emissions drastically increased greenhouse gases’ concentration in the atmosphere, yielding a human-induced global warming issue. Consequently, people living in Mediterranean-like climate areas have to deal with amplified effects like extreme heat and severe drought, while people in colder regions are challenged with catastrophic floods. Unfortunately, serious health issues are also arising from the extreme weather events. Likewise, animals and other exposed organisms are highly threatened due to their vulnerable environmental traits. Why we should care? We should care about this topic, as it does not only affect the wildlife and far-off countries only, but rather every global citizen. We play a very big role in causing the irreparable damage as well. Example Article. https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-travel-europe-environment-and-nature-climate-change-1681a625675bc3d4c56b3aaefb441ee2 I found this article interesting because it covers a very important topic and includes extra relevant information. For example, the article mentioned Algeria (a North African Mediterranean country), Geneva (a city in Switzerland - central Europe), and Turkey which is mostly an Asian country (intercontinental). It also includes statistics that demonstrate the severity of the issue. A thorough explanation regarding the causations and impacts of the heat waves was also provided to highlight other correlated factors. I also found it interesting how a conspiracy about people causing the fires in Italy was mentioned in the article. Overall, the article included a clear explanation of what caused and intensified the crisis, and deeply discussed the effects of the issue as well. Science in Action.
Dr. Myles Allen is the head of the Climate Dynamics group at the University of Oxford's Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Department. Professor Myles Allen’s research looks into observing the greater changes in the climate and the global mean surface warming, which is greatly determined by carbon dioxide emissions. He further researches about the natural and human-caused influences that contribute to climate change. The research also emphasizes the importance of not emitting fossil carbon reserves if goals of avoiding the 2 ͦ C increase in global warming are set. Professor Allen served in the UN and founded the world’s largest climate modeling experiment (the Climate Prediction Project). His research is relevant to the topic discussed, since it covers the issue of global warming and the potential causes of it. Furthermore, the Myles Allen has played a significant role in detecting human influence on climate change and with climate predictions, in which he was even awarded for it.
9 Comments
Rochelle Durand
11/10/2021 17:10:36
I really like how you mentioned how an increase in temperatures will contribute to an increase in more diseases and other serious health problems. It is really important to consider the health effects as well as the physical effects when looking at the costs of climate change. I hope that leaders in Southern Europe are taking action to combat climate change in their countries to prevent more health issues.
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11/11/2021 05:04:50
The warmer weather and southern Europe is a blessing and a curse. Unmanaged Wildland can be used for farming and other purposes but it creates a virtual Firestorm of fuel for wildfires. Increased CO2 emissions in the world are changing our atmosphere at a alarming level. Heat waves and droughts I'm becoming more routine. The increase in heat makes it easier to culture bacteria and diseases. Global warming could be responsible for the spread of covid-19 so rapidly in colder climates.
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Abby Plonka
11/15/2021 15:13:43
I didn't know that the effects of climate change were that much worse in areas with warmer climates. I also wasn't aware that there were serious health risks associated with these severe weather events, even to the point of asking certain people to stay home. I hope that this gets more people to care about climate change because it's not only harming the environment, but individual people as well.
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Rachel Mangulabnan
11/15/2021 16:00:28
A lot of the times when wildfires occur we are so focused on what is happening here. I liked getting a more global perspective on the topic as I had no idea how much it is effecting absolutely everyone. I don’t always think about how much more intense climate change is felt closer to the equator but it is definitely important as our global temperature continues to rise.
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Thomas Cisney
11/15/2021 16:39:43
It is wild to me that the heat wave devastates so much. I knew that it was dangerous for humans, but I never really considered the wildfires and droughts that come along with it. I understood that those might be a byproduct but its scary to see stay at home mandates for people because of how rough it can get.
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Mikaela
11/15/2021 20:17:42
I feel like this article touches on what we are similarly seeing in California right now as our climate changes and causes hotter and dryer summers. It is easy for us living in cool, rainy/snowy Michigan to not care as much about what hotter states and even countries as we see here are dealing with, but the issue is this will be the reality for all of us if we don't make differences now. Also, what an impactful picture to choose. They say a picture is worth 1,000 words and that picture does a great job at capturing the horrifying reality of the wildfires and warmer temperatures.
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Sullivan Stack
11/15/2021 23:51:56
I frequently find myself baffled that most people seem to view increasing global temperatures as a fairly mundane threat or a political issue to be argued about. While an increase of a few degrees on average does not seem significant to many people's daily lives (after all it's "only a few degrees warmer"), we keep seeing many new complications arise from climate change. I firmly hold that climate change is within the top three largest threats to our continued existence on this planet. With all of these damages arising, I hope that we can hold the parties that funded misinformation campaigns to make this scientific issue a political argument accountable as we venture into this new world of climate change-related damages.
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riley st.ledger
11/16/2021 10:04:38
It is going to be very scary to see the increases in wildfires, heatwaves, and droughts in the warmer climates. These environmental problems are only going to continue to get worse if drastic action against climate change isn't taken. The warming of the planet is seriously affecting the environment, and is starting to dangerously affect humans as well.
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Juliana Witt
12/18/2021 13:00:53
I had heard about the terrible fires in Greece and extreme heat wvaes in that area but I did not know that it was this bad. Bad to the point that elderly people and pregnant woman were told to stay inside. That is insane, people have to worry about their well- being because of the heat. It is crazy to think that people don't believe that global warming exists when things like this are happening and natural disasters are causing people to become ill.
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