2023-09-07 16:38:00
Thursday recorded more than 30 degrees in Uccle (30.2 exactly), making this seventh September the hottest in the country’s history and succeeding a Wednesday at 30.1°C and a Tuesday at 30, 9°C. “We should reach the thresholds of a heat wave in most regions, ie at least 5 consecutive days recording at least 25 degrees, including 3 days with at least 30 degrees”, already warned the Royal Institute of Meteorology on Thursday morning. A heat wave in September in our country (this Friday should be the fifth day in a row to exceed 25 degrees) will be a first in our country.
But it’s the whole sequence that is also “exceptional”. “Having a heat stroke for a day or two in September happens regularly. But a sequence of ten days is unheard of. The first ten days of September will logically be the hottest in history,” IRM meteorologist Pascal Mormal announced on Wednesday. Meteorologists evoke a blockage phenomenon in Omega, named following the Greek letter (Ω) in the shape of a horseshoe. It consists of two areas of depression (one is currently located off Portugal and the other in the eastern Mediterranean) with, in the middle, an area of blocking high pressure, in which France, the United Kingdom and the Benelux are located and that generates very hot air.
The IRM forecasts these high temperatures until Monday included and has therefore issued a yellow warning for the heat for almost all the territory. Only the province of Luxembourg and the coast escape it.
2023 might be the hottest year in history
Exhaust gases, sun and heat
Given these temperatures, the Interregional Environment Unit (Celine) for its part launched the High Heat and Ozone Peaks plan on Tuesday (warning phase). La Celine expected to see ozone concentrations increase. The situation was poor on Thursday. As pollution accumulates, Friday and until Sunday, ozone concentrations are expected to be high, with risks of overtaking locally (especially in Flanders) the so-called informational European concentration threshold of 180μg/m³, above which sensitive people and children are advised not to carry out intense physical exertion outdoors in the followingnoon.
This pollutant is formed from vehicle exhaust gases and volatile organic compounds and from solar radiation. Ozone peaks occur when the sun is strong and the temperature is high and when weather conditions limit the dispersion of air masses. A high concentration of ozone in the air reduces respiratory capacity and can cause irritation of the eyes, nose, throat, lung inflammation, asthma attacks… “To fight once morest ozone peaks, only structural measures taken throughout the year, such as the reduction of road traffic and the creation of islands of freshness, are really effective”, specifies Brussels-Environment.
Heat waves, more intense and more frequent due to climate change, are concocting a “diabolical potion” of pollutants that threaten humans and all living beings, the UN warned on Wednesday, in a report. Climate change and air quality “go hand in hand and must be tackled together to break this vicious circle. Air quality and climate are interconnected because the chemical compounds that affect them are linked, because the substances responsible for climate change and degradation of air quality are often emitted from the same sources and because that changes in one inevitably lead to changes in the other,” the World Meteorological Organization stressed, noting that while the report is looking at 2022 data, “what we see in 2023 is even more extreme.”
While the smoke plumes from the wildfires that smothered Athens or New York this summer are the most visible part of the air pollution caused by heatwaves, they also induce a host of more insidious and dangerous chemical processes. for health. Thus, in 2022, the long heat wave that hit Europe led to an increase in the concentrations of particles and ozone in the troposphere. And concentrations exceeded the level recommended by the WHO over most of Europe, according to the report.
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