A severe heatwave gripped much of Europe on Sunday, with temperatures nearing 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), prompting nationwide warnings, transport disruption and signs of strain on wildlife and at tourist hotspots.
The heat surge on June 21, the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere and typically the start of the three hottest months of the year, raised concerns of an early and persistent onset of extreme conditions.
The secret is that the temperature underground is much cooler than surface temperatures. To take advantage of this, you dig a hole about 6 feet down, lie down flat, then pull the dirt back over yourself and fill the hole or have someone else do it for you.
There's this sort of little known concept known as "climate change", it was known as "global warming" a long time ago. The idea is that as we releaae greenhouse gases like CO2 into the atmosphere, more of the sun's energy gets trapped inside the atmosphere making it warmer.
As it gets warmer, stuff like this is expected to become more common. We haven't known about this for very long, and so our greenhouse gas emissions continue to speed up day by day, but if we can spread the word about this new and very important phonomenon, we might be able to avoid the worst of it in the long run.
Or maybe it will all just go away and get better one day if we just do nothing and wait and see. I don't think we know enough about this "climate change" thing yet to really make any drastic changes. I mean what if we're wrong?
🤷♂️ can't hurt....
Yeah, my house was built for extreme heat in the traditional Spanish way - it has every trick available to stay cool without needing electricity.
During heatwaves these days, however, it gets heatsoaked and becomes too hot inside. So, we've gotta put in a heat exchanger :-/
What are all these tricks?
Sooo ...
A light coloured Roman tile outer roof, supported by vented bricks that allow airflow, above a vented attic space, above a concrete ceiling also lined with vented bricks (essentially a second roof).
Then it has external shutters, shades (again with a top of Roman tiles) that stick out enough that sunlight doesn't hit the windows directly through the hottest part of the day.
The walls are thick, double-skinned with an air-gap, and painted white on the outside.
Inside, all foors are tiled over concrete so they act as a heatsink, too. Plus it's built partly into the mountain side.
Since moving in we've added some ceiling insulation, double glazing, and redone the chimney so that it's well sealed and doesn't allow warm air in. Next up is heat exchangers, probably one on each end of the house.
Being buried underground helps. Like unironically, as heat and cold waves continue to get worse, we may see people shifting towards underground homes. They’re already fairly common in parts of America (mostly in tornado alley where being buried helps protect against having the entire house being ripped off the foundation and thrown across town) and they are extremely energy efficient.
Your walls basically use geothermal to transfer heat directly into the earth. Like how being buried in sand at the beach will keep you nice and cool even when the beach is hot. Especially if you’re buried below the frost line, which makes winters easy too. So it’s not like it’s a new building technique that would need to be invented. It’s just that we’ll probably see more of it in places that didn’t traditionally have them.
That’s really smart. You could have just a garage above your house.
From what I've read, not exactly.
AMOC collapse would cause weather patterns in Europe to swing wildly between scorching hot to frigid cold, causing crop/local ecosystem collapse.
So first you're going to be really hungry, then--depending upon how long you make it--you'll be bitterly cold or insufferably hot.
🫠
I lived in a small city in Wales a few years back.
Pretty much no one had AC in their house/apartment.
A lot of other places didn't either. Like restaurants and pubs.
But the grocery store did. So if it got crazy hot I would sometimes wander around the tesco across the street.
The university I was attending had AC in the newer building but I do believe it wasn't in all buildings.
Train had AC.
The Bus most certainly did not.
Riding the bus on a hot rainy day was like being in a sauna. Condensation running down the inside walls and windows. All fogged up windows.
They just aren't prepared to handle this heat.
The windows I had in my apartment were like...they opened like a fridge door on its side. Not slide up like how it is common here in the U.S. Making it difficult to use window AC units.
Plus the additional demand on the power grid for people getting AC for homes and apartments is probably not currently supported.
The windows I had in my apartment were like...they opened like a fridge door on its side. Not slide up like how it is common here in the U.S. Making it difficult to use window AC units.
Basically how all european windows work
Wales though, isn't going to be at the heart of the heat wave. Them having oceanic climate and being pretty far north already, they won't be as hot. But I was surprised to see, that even there it's going to be more than 30°C for a bit.
Other countries like Spain, France and Italy are gonna experience the real extremes, with temperatures as high as 42°C in some places. Fortunately, AC is a bit more common there, as they are experience higher temperatures more frequently, but still.
In Germany, where I live, we're not very well prepared for the prolonged heat, and AC is still pretty rare here, especially in homes (and somehow has a bad rep).
We have a culturally ingrained technique to deal with it, by blocking out direct sunlight with our window blinds (if you haven't seen our common blinds, watch this: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KePLmie7lE) and airing out the house at night to cool down the building. This worked pretty well for the climate that used to be. But for heat waves like the one in front of us, where it doesn't cool down below 25°C we'll reach our limits.
I'm so happy to live in an appartement, that recently had split heat-pumps installed to replace it's old school electric heating system. Those can be used for cooling as well.
Managed to keep my indoor temp under 30 today here in Normandy. No AC. Not looking forward to the next few days.
40C is just June through August where I live.
I have a window AC, but most summers I don't bother installing it. I did order a ceiling fan for my bedroom, though. Should be here tomorrow.
You've heard, "but it's a dry heat"? Yeah, that makes a huge difference. It's currently 9% humidity and dropping here.
40c is already beyond tolerable heat. Personally 24c is the upper limit.
That's not actually outside of the realms of possibility. Id just have to move to the northern part of my neighboring county and I'd be close to polar circle.
24C? Man I'm in one of the coldest cities on the planet. I get heat stroke immediately any time I approach past 30°N. Even I don't feel hot until around 28C or so.
My fiancee is Turkish and she gets cold at 16 though so I guess you must somehow be further north than I am.
Not really, actually even more to the South, 59,4N.
Cant help it. My heat tolerance is abysmally bad. 24c is the last comfortable limit if I'm not active. Every point above that gets worse and by 25c I'm completely coverd in sweat constantly and performance drops, even sleep gets disrupted.
I'm moving to Iceland
Sorry, it's "Slushland" now
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I am quite concerned as a south European, the heat every summer becomes more and more unbearable, the official temperatures don't do it justice, I have seen temperatures above 52° celsius on my car thermometer parked in the shade. We have no protection against this extreme heat, on the cold you can dress warmer, but with the heat there is nothing we can do if you have to work in the street. Migraines all the time, heat rashes all the time, food spoils all the time, wildfires all the time. A constant nightmare
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