Catherine Field: Europe Correspondent on the heatwave rolling through Europe

Records have been set in Spain and Portugal as extreme heat continues to roast Europe.  

Temperatures at or above 38C are expected through the week, rolling eastward to encompass France, Italy, and eventually portions of Eastern Europe.  

A record number of heat alerts are in place across France, with 16 regions on red alert, and 68 others on orange alert. 

Europe Correspondent Catherine Field told Mike Hosking while heatwaves aren’t uncommon in summer, there’s never been temperatures this high, this early. 

She says Monday was the hottest June day in France ever, and it’s only going to get worse by Tuesday lunchtime.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
How hot are you, Catherine, Come on, tell us, is
it the end of the world?

Speaker 2 (00:04):
It certainly does feel like it's the apocalypse. Spike. I
have to tell you you can hear me because I've
just leant over and switched off the fan that's been
on beside me all day. It has been absolutely extreme
temperatures here the last few days. I mean, just look
at it. Spain. Highest ever temperature at forty six degrees
in southern Spain. Yet we have heat waves summer. This

(00:29):
is true, but there's never been temperatures this high so
early in the summer, or this high generally. I mean
Monday was the hottest June day in France. Ever, they
say it's only going to get worse by Tuesday lunchtime.
It's going to get up to around forty forty one degrees.
The warnings are just intense, like you know, extreme heats.

(00:51):
So there's going to be health alerts, wildfire alerts, just
telling people stay indoors that this is going to be uncomfortable,
watch out for forest fires, and just the rest of
the news is get used to it because it's going
to be a long summer.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
That was my next question. So you're not going up
and up and up. In other words, by the time
you get to July and August, you're not going to
have forty nine. But presumably what you're talking about is
a lot of hot days over an extended period of time,
and that'll wee you down.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
It will weigh down. I mean you're already seeing it, Mike.
You we've had what four days of this. People already
getting a little grudge. Here was one other. It's fine
if your work of regular hours, and you can be
like me and go and walk your dogs at two
o'clock in the morning and meet all your neighbors and
have a good chat. But other people have to good work.
Go wherever it is they work. Not all places have

(01:41):
the air coorns. So on that respect, it is bad that, Mike.
You also have to remember this has come after a
very dry winter. You had a dry spring, so the
ground is already pretty parched. And that's why they're saying,
not just here in France, but Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey,
there will be forest fires. Just be really careful.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
What's it doing. And I worry about the grapes. You're
picking about September and a grape like stress. But I'm
thinking if you didn't have much water and winter, and
you know, the agriculture must be affected by all this,
it really is.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
I mean, now we're starting to see not just agriculture
affected by climate change, but also by global conflict. Look
at what we've got. We've got Poland and Ukraine, the
world's leading grain exporters, Europe's spread basket. They've been in
drought now for more than three months. They had a
very dry winter, they had a dry spring as well.

(02:36):
So we're going to be this time next year, we're
going to be looking at really high grain prices elsewhere. Already,
traffic along the Rhine River is down because the water
levels are down. You've got barges, vessels that are unable
to sail fully loaded, some of them about forty to
fifty percent loaded. What does it mean? That means the grain,
the minerals, the oil that they're taking along the Rhine

(02:59):
that's going to be more expensive by the time it
gets to the consumer.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
The smoking band that came in yesterday today, whatever date
you're on, is is there much debate around that or
are you just joining many other parts of the world.
And that is what it is?

Speaker 2 (03:12):
It is what it is really I mean, there's been
a couple of complaints about it, but it was just
really putting in place what a lot of local councils
had already been doing. You know, you go to the
beach and people were smoking beside you, and people didn't
like it, and it was really just regularizing a situation
that in the summer months was a little bit unpleasant
for Okay.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
These scientists who have parked themselves under the science asylum,
how many are there? And do you think they'll stay?
And what are they doing? And you know, are they hot?

Speaker 2 (03:40):
They well, yes, at the moment, the first aid have arrived.
They're down at the University of Ex Marseilles, which is
one of France's largest universities. The first of twenty from
the United States they've arrived. They're going to be doing health,
climate science, astrophysics, those sorts of subjects. There will eventually
be twenty downe there. For those twenty places, at one university,

(04:03):
they received three hundred applications from American researchers. That particular
university is putting up around twenty eight million New Zealand
dollars to attract these researchers. There will be other universities
that are looking as part of this asylum possibilities for
researchers from America. The French government has put in total

(04:24):
around two hundred million New Zealand dollars to get these
researchers to bring their knowledge to France in the hope
that the knowledge they bring will help the economy will
help society in general.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
We wish them well. Go well, Catherine stay called Catherine
Field in France a hot France. For more from the
My Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.