Weather in Europe 2021 - up

[Mark]

France is in a heatwave this week. Nobody is pretending otherwise.

Météo-France says an intense, durable canicule is underway, with more than 40C (104F) in parts of central and western France and local highs of 41C to 42C (105.8F to 107.6F). This is serious heat.

But the mechanism is not mysterious. The Met Office describes a strong high-pressure system over western Europe, with sinking air suppressing cloud, allowing prolonged sunshine, and raising temperatures through compressional heating. That is weather. That is how European heatwaves form.

And while western Europe receives the heat headlines, ignored are the larger cool anomalies covering the north and east:


Also, Europe has paved itself.

The EEA says the surface area of EU cities has increased 78% since the mid-1950s. From 1990 to 2006, EU settlement areas increased by 9%. From 2000 to 2018, artificial surfaces such as buildings and roads increased by more than 6%. The EEA calls this “soil sealing”: land covered by concrete, asphalt, buildings, roads, car parks and other hard surfaces.
https://electroverse.substack.com/p/europes-asphalt-summer-cool-anomalies