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Over-heated Mediterranean stokes tourism fears

Helena Smith, Jason Burke, and Robin McKie

Greece is now on a war footing against weather phenomena “the likes of which we have never seen,” the country’s Public Order Minister, Byron Polydoras, has warned. Mr. Polydoras was speaking as countries around the Mediterranean roasted, with temperatures soaring to “furnace levels,” as one meteorologist described it.

Temperatures are likely to reach 43 degrees Centigrade in the shade, making this the hottest summer on record for Greece in the past century. Macedonia has declared a state of emergency. Spain, Italy, and France are experiencing droughts that are measuring up to become the worst on record.

Many politicians now fear the Mediterranean coast may soon become too hot to sustain a viable tourist industry. “The Mediterranean climate of this country no longer exists. It is changing, perhaps even faster than we expected,” said Michalis Petrakis, director of the Institute of Environmental Research at the National Observatory in Athens.

Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Cyprus have all endured searing temperatures over the past few weeks as a region of high pressure extended east from the Azores, blocking weather fronts that normally keep the eastern Mediterranean fairly cool at this time of year.

In France, weeks of searing weather have brought climate change back on to the agenda. Newspapers have been full of images of parched river beds — such as the Garonne in Toulouse, where locals can walk on the baked mud of the bed. This year’s report from the government’s climate change experts predicted temperatures rising between two and four degrees before the end of the century. According to Meteo-France, winters may be five degrees warmer with summers three degrees hotter.

“Less precipitation, more evaporation: the two phenomena together will lead to the drying out of the zone around the Mediterranean,” said Jean Jouzel, director of a French research centre and author of Climate: Dangerous Game s.

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