LONDON – Hot nighttime temperatures are hampering the response of firefighters across Europe and worsening health conditions as the night provides no respite in terms of cooling, experts say.
The UK experienced its hottest night on record last night, with temperatures not dropping below 25 degrees Celsius in some places. For its part, La Hague, in Normandy (France), recorded 32.8ºC at 3am on Tuesday.
On most of the planet, nighttime temperatures are increasing faster than daytime temperatures due to climate change.
“Hoter nights mean that people and our environment are not getting a reprieve from climate change,” said Jennifer Balch, a fire expert at the University of Colorado Boulder in the United States.
In a study published in February 2022 in the journal Nature, Balch and his team found that the cool, wet nights that once helped control fires are disappearing.
“Nights have become 25% hotter and drier worldwide in the last 40 years,” said Balch, noting a 36 percent increase in the number of hours of darkness warm and dry enough to keep fires active.
This means that exhausted firefighters don’t get rest. Currently, around 1,700 firefighters are battling the fire in the coastal region of Gironde. Many more tried to put out the fires in Spain and Portugal.
Hot nights can also affect the physical and mental health of residents.
“Sleep is disrupted for many people during heat waves,” says Laurance Wainwright, a professor of environment at the University of Oxford.
Poorer sleep quality or shorter sleep duration may worsen outcomes for those with major depressive disorder. “Throwing and spinning and sweating … a few days like that for some people can be a problem,” he said.
A hot night after a hot day can also make recovery difficult.
“The body tries to reach a lower temperature, which puts stress on the cardiovascular and respiratory systems and keeps the heart rate high,” explains Dominic Roye, a climatologist at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain).
Roye was previously involved in a pilot study examining the effects of hot nights on mortality in southern Europe. The results showed a clear relationship, especially in the case of people suffering from cardiovascular disease.
“If you have a high-temperature environment like this, you can’t sleep well,” he said.
While otherwise healthy people may feel tired the next day, this can be fatal for those with underlying medical conditions, according to Roye. (Reuters)