Meteorologists predict more heatwaves in France
(ORDO NEWS) — The summer of 2022 was the second hottest since the turn of the 20th century, according to the National Weather Service, and heatwaves will become more frequent in the coming decades.
The heatwaves that hit France this summer will be repeated with increasing frequency in the coming decades. Such a forecast was announced on Saturday by the newspaper Le Parisien, citing a study by the national meteorological service Meteo France.
According to the service, July 2022 was the driest month on record in the country, and the summer as a whole was the second hottest since the beginning of the 20th century. At the same time, since the beginning of the year, meteorologists have recorded 33 days when temperatures were considered abnormally high.
About 14% of the country’s 67 million people live in zones where at least 20 days of high temperatures were observed per year. “In the coming years, 80% of citizens are at risk of experiencing from 16 to 29 such days annually. And this applies to both daytime and nighttime hours,” experts warn.
The expansion of the scale and duration of the phenomenon will have a negative impact primarily on the elderly. The researchers base their estimates on the experience of 2003, when 15,000 people, many of whom were elderly, died from the effects of the heat.
In the summer of 2022, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Research (Insee), 11,000 more deaths were detected than in 2019, which the institute tends to associate with abnormal heat.
Children are also named among the risk groups – in this regard, the authorities are discussing the issue of improving thermoregulation in the premises of educational institutions. In addition, workers in the construction and agricultural industries are said to be among the most vulnerable to such climate change.
The authorities also intend to attend to the dissemination of information about the dangers of heat and how to deal with it among tourists in seaside cities.
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