As an intense heatwave continues to affect large parts of Europe, Irish people living abroad, though accustomed to hot weather in the summer, have expressed concerns about the recent rising temperatures.
Several members of the diaspora responded to a call-out this week from The Irish Times asking readers to share their experiences of the European heat.
Desmond Molloy, who lives in Vienna, describes the rising temperatures as “psychological horror”.
“We expect 35 degrees this Thursday, before the temperature falls ... but most likely only for a while.”
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He notes that while “Vienna’s public housing systems may be world-renowned”, the “buildings have no cooling systems of any kind, and the city’s massive public debts makes any kind of retrofitting unfeasible in the near term”.
He considers himself lucky, having moved from his old apartment in favour of one with a heat-pump cooling system.
He says that “a century ago, summers were cool and rainy here, with warm weather for only a few weeks”.
“Watching this happen to somewhere I love is like watching a friend die while an indifferent crowd passes by.”
Paul Moore, a climatologist with Met Éireann, told The Irish Times that parts of Europe are under a “heat dome”, a high pressure system that traps hot air and blocks cool air, which will continue to intensify temperatures in western, central and southern Europe this week.
He says “human-caused climate change” has led to these extreme weather conditions.
United Nations secretary-general António Guterres had called extreme heat “the new normal”, after experiencing it first hand attending the Financing for Development Conference in Spain.
For Irish people living across Europe, adjusting to this “new normal” comes with its challenges.
Conal Taylor has lived in Bouches-du-Rhone, France, for eight years and says “the evidence of how the climate has changed” is obvious.
“Heatwaves are occurring more often and start earlier and earlier. Drought is widespread and forest fires are more frequent, larger and destructive than before.”
Temperatures will range between 33 and 36 degrees this week in the region.
He says local schools are “on heatwave red alert, meaning there is no obligation to send your children in”. His daughter is staying at home as the air conditioning in her school is poor.
Taylor says when he first moved to the area“we would go down to the sea in the evenings to cool off, but now the water is close to 30 [degrees] by the end of the day. It feels like swimming in soup”.
He feels “there is no real end in sight yet” to the extreme temperatures.
Orna O’Reilly has lived for 12 years in northern Italy, where temperatures reached 36 degrees on Monday.
She has noticed “the walking trail across the field from us, normally busy with people walking their dogs and jogging, is now completely deserted except for the late evening when people venture out”.
She says June is usually “a very pleasant month here in northern Italy”, but these are the hottest temperatures she has experienced since moving.
O’Reilly lives in an energy-efficient home “which manages to keep reasonably cool with just a minimal amount of air conditioning when it becomes too warm”, adding that “homes in Italy are designed to cope with extremes in temperature”.
Marie King, who lives in southwest Germany, says on Monday she experienced “conditions I’ve never experienced before despite spending 1½ years as far south as in Seville, Spain.”
She describes the heat as “suffocating”, saying she will “never complain again about the Irish weather”.
She says normally “you can cope with daytime temperatures because you can be fairly sure they’re going to drop around sunset”, but on Monday, they didn’t.
“My four-legged friend doesn’t understand why we went out walking in the very early hours, but since then have only put our noses outside to quickly do the bare necessities.”
The record-breaking heat is set to continue across Europe throughout this week, while temperatures in Ireland are due to decline slightly.
