
Europe's second extreme heat wave of the summer has lived up to predictions, smashing records across the continent.
Paris recorded its all-time highest temperature of 42.6 degrees Celsius, BBC News reported. Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands all endured record highs on Wednesday only to see them broken again on Thursday, AccuWeather reported. Thursday's all-time highs measured 41.8 for Belgium, 42.6 for Germany and 40.7 for the Netherlands, the first time the country heated to 40 degrees or more.
The European #heatwave smashed numerous temperature records in #France, #Belgium, #Germany, #Netherlands. This included 42.6°C in Paris and 41.5°C in Lille, according to @meteofrance . pic.twitter.com/8wGjTPPgjS
— WMO | OMM (@WMO) July 26, 2019
The UK, meanwhile, experienced its hottest ever July temperature of 38.1 degrees Celsius, BBC News reported. This is only the second time that the UK has experienced a temperature above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the UK's Met Office tweeted.
38.1 °C has been recorded at Cambridge; this is only the second time temperatures over 100 Fahrenheit have been recorded in the UK #heatwave #HottestUKJulyDay #HottestDayOfTheYear so far pic.twitter.com/JXlwKfMSE6
— Met Office (@metoffice) July 25, 2019
The heat has proven potentially deadly, as five deaths recorded in France may have been linked to the heat. It also interfered with transportation. Trains in Britain ran at reduced speeds to keep rails from buckling, and a Eurostar traveling from Belgium to London actually broke down Wednesday, forcing passengers to wait in the heat for three hours.
"Everything was suddenly down: no air-conditioning, no electricity," passenger Paul De Grauwe said, as The New York Times reported. "I have never been so hot in my life."
The high Paris temperatures also threatened Notre-Dame cathedral, which was damaged in a fire in April.
"I am very worried about the heat wave because, as you know, the cathedral suffered from the fire, the beams coming down, but also the shock from the water from the firefighters. The masonry is saturated with water," Chief Architect Philippe Villeneuve told Reuters, as AccuWeather reported.
The Met Office noted that heat waves in Europe have gotten both more likely and more extreme because of the climate crisis, BBC News reported.
"What we have at the moment is this very warm stream of air, coming up from northern Africa, bringing with it unusually warm weather," the Met Office's Dr. Peter Stott told BBC 5Live. "But without climate change we wouldn't have hit the peaks that we're hitting right now."
Other scientists agreed.
"This. Is. Climate. Change." University of Oxford climate scientist Karsten Haustein tweeted.
This. Is. Climate. Change. #hottestdayonrecord https://t.co/UUCEG3EIvx
— Karsten Haustein 🌍 (@khaustein) July 25, 2019
Heat waves like this week's cause increased discomfort for Europeans because the continent has not embraced air conditioning as the U.S has. While more than 90 percent of U.S. homes have an air-conditioning system, fewer than 10 percent of European homes do, The New York Times reported.
That may change with more frequent heat waves. The head of a Munich-based air-conditioning installation company said he had seen steady growth from year to year. But more units would also mean more climate change.
"By cooling off the inside and warming the outside, we are feeding a disastrous vicious circle," Brice Tréméac, the head of Paris-based research institution the Laboratory of Cold, Energy and Thermic Systems, told The New York Times.
In a country where buildings are often without air-conditioning, nature might be your best escape from the #heatwave...
— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) July 25, 2019
After measuring temperature changes across #Paris, environmental engineer Olivier Papin found that it can be up to 15 °C cooler under the trees than in the sun pic.twitter.com/KpavA0U1a2
For now, however, Europe can expect to see some relief Friday as temperatures cool. But the warm air could wreak further havoc as it moves towards Greenland, where it could cause record melting of its ice-sheet, Reuters reported Friday.
"According to forecasts, and this is of concern, the atmospheric flow is now going to transport that heat towards Greenland," World Meteorological Organization spokeswoman Clare Nullis said in a UN briefing in Geneva Friday. "This will result in high temperatures and consequently enhanced melting of the Greenland ice sheet. We don't know yet whether it will beat the 2012 level, but it's close."
So far this July, the ice sheet has lost the equivalent of 64 million Olympic-sized swimming pools worth of ice through surface melting. The hot weather could also further melt Arctic sea ice, which was close to its lowest extent on record as of July 15.
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While traditional investment in the ocean technology sector has been tentative, growth in Israeli maritime innovations has been exponential in the last few years, and environmental concern has come to the forefront.
theDOCK aims to innovate the Israeli maritime sector. Pexels
<p>The UN hopes that new investments in ocean science and technology will help turn the tide for the oceans. As such, this year kicked off the <a href="https://www.oceandecade.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030)</a> to galvanize massive support for the blue economy.</p><p>According to the World Bank, the blue economy is the "sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs while preserving the health of ocean ecosystem," <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412019338255#b0245" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Science Direct</a> reported. It represents this new sector for investments and innovations that work in tandem with the oceans rather than in exploitation of them.</p><p>As recently as Aug. 2020, <a href="https://www.reutersevents.com/sustainability/esg-investors-slow-make-waves-25tn-ocean-economy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Reuters</a> noted that ESG Investors, those looking to invest in opportunities that have a positive impact in environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, have been interested in "blue finance" but slow to invest.</p><p>"It is a hugely under-invested economic opportunity that is crucial to the way we have to address living on one planet," Simon Dent, director of blue investments at Mirova Natural Capital, told Reuters.</p><p>Even with slow investment, the blue economy is still expected to expand at twice the rate of the mainstream economy by 2030, Reuters reported. It already contributes $2.5tn a year in economic output, the report noted.</p><p>Current, upward <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/-innovation-blue-economy-2646147405.html" target="_self">shifts in blue economy investments are being driven by innovation</a>, a trend the UN hopes will continue globally for the benefit of all oceans and people.</p><p>In Israel, this push has successfully translated into investment in and innovation of global ports, shipping, logistics and offshore sectors. The "Startup Nation," as Israel is often called, has seen its maritime tech ecosystem grow "significantly" in recent years and expects that growth to "accelerate dramatically," <a href="https://itrade.gov.il/belgium-english/how-israel-is-becoming-a-port-of-call-for-maritime-innovation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">iTrade</a> reported.</p><p>Driving this wave of momentum has been rising Israeli venture capital hub <a href="https://www.thedockinnovation.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">theDOCK</a>. Founded by Israeli Navy veterans in 2017, theDOCK works with early-stage companies in the maritime space to bring their solutions to market. The hub's pioneering efforts ignited Israel's maritime technology sector, and now, with their new fund, theDOCK is motivating these high-tech solutions to also address ESG criteria.</p><p>"While ESG has always been on theDOCK's agenda, this theme has become even more of a priority," Nir Gartzman, theDOCK's managing partner, told EcoWatch. "80 percent of the startups in our portfolio (for theDOCK's Navigator II fund) will have a primary or secondary contribution to environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria."</p><p>In a company presentation, theDOCK called contribution to the ESG agenda a "hot discussion topic" for traditional players in the space and their boards, many of whom are looking to adopt new technologies with a positive impact on the planet. The focus is on reducing carbon emissions and protecting the environment, the presentation outlines. As such, theDOCK also explicitly screens candidate investments by ESG criteria as well.</p><p>Within the maritime space, environmental innovations could include measures like increased fuel and energy efficiency, better monitoring of potential pollution sources, improved waste and air emissions management and processing of marine debris/trash into reusable materials, theDOCK's presentation noted.</p>theDOCK team includes (left to right) Michal Hendel-Sufa, Head of Alliances, Noa Schuman, CMO, Nir Gartzman, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, and Hannan Carmeli, Co-Founder & Managing Partner. Dudu Koren
<p>theDOCK's own portfolio includes companies like Orca AI, which uses an intelligent collision avoidance system to reduce the probability of oil or fuel spills, AiDock, which eliminates the use of paper by automating the customs clearance process, and DockTech, which uses depth "crowdsourcing" data to map riverbeds in real-time and optimize cargo loading, thereby reducing trips and fuel usage while also avoiding groundings.</p><p>"Oceans are a big opportunity primarily because they are just that – big!" theDOCK's Chief Marketing Officer Noa Schuman summarized. "As such, the magnitude of their criticality to the global ecosystem, the magnitude of pollution risk and the steps needed to overcome those challenges – are all huge."</p><p>There is hope that this wave of interest and investment in environmentally-positive maritime technologies will accelerate the blue economy and ESG investing even further, in Israel and beyond.</p>- 14 Countries Commit to Ocean Sustainability Initiative - EcoWatch ›
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