{"id":18888,"date":"2022-07-22T09:26:42","date_gmt":"2022-07-22T08:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.economicsobservatory.com\/?post_type=question&p=18888"},"modified":"2022-07-22T10:00:12","modified_gmt":"2022-07-22T09:00:12","slug":"overheating","status":"publish","type":"question","link":"https:\/\/www.economicsobservatory.com\/test\/overheating","title":{"rendered":"Overheating"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Newsletter from Friday 22 July<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday, the temperature reached 40.3\u00b0C<\/a> in Coningsby, Lincolnshire. This made it the hottest day ever recorded in England, and the latest peak in an alarming upward trend. According to the Met Office, nine of the ten warmest days ever recorded in the UK have been since 1990.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even as the sun set, it barely cooled down. Provisional data suggest that from Monday into Tuesday the country experienced its hottest night on record, with parts of the East of England remaining above 25\u00b0C from dusk until dawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such extreme heat poses serious dangers, not only to people but to animals, plants and infrastructure. This week zoos were closed<\/a>, trees burst into flames<\/a> and several train services were cancelled<\/a> for fear that the metal in the tracks would warp and buckle under the blistering sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As fires erupted across the UK<\/a> and continental Europe, emergency services were put under substantial pressure. On Tuesday the London Fire Brigade were called out to over 2,600 incidents, making it their busiest day since the Second World War. In Gironde, in south-west France, tens of thousands of people have been evacuated<\/a> from their homes as nearby forests burn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further afield, temperatures also rose above 40\u00b0C in North America, the Middle East and Asia<\/a>. Looking at the global data, Steve Pawson, Chief of the Global Modelling and Assimilation Office at NASA, concluded that the recent record-breaking heat is \u2018another clear indicator\u2026 that human activity is causing weather extremes that impact our living conditions\u2019. The latest global heatwave is a dangerous backward step for mankind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extreme weather costs<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

These extreme weather events also have significant economic costs, as highlighted in an Economics Observatory article by Ilan Noy<\/a> (Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington). The piece \u2013 first posted as part of our COP26 collection<\/a> \u2013 explores how economists calculate the costs of extreme weather. He argues that the true economic impact of these disasters, and their effects on equality, are being underestimated. This means economists and policy-makers may also be misjudging the urgency required to implement cost-effective mitigation policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A particularly alarming chart from the article plots the first full-flowering day of cherry blossom in Kyoto over time (see Figure 1). Using data running back over a millennium, the graphic highlights how the trees are coming into flower earlier and earlier each year, particularly since 1900. In 2021, the trees blossomed on 26 March. This is the earliest they have done so in more than 1,200 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 1: First full-flowering day of the cherry blossom in Kyoto, Japan<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n
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