London's woes show how unprepared it is for a warmer world

LONDON • When storm clouds rolled into London on Tuesday evening, the rain brought with it much-needed relief for sweltering city residents after a day of record-breaking heat that sparked wildfires, disrupted train travel, and strained the city's infrastructure and health services.

The heat eased on Wednesday but left behind a city full of anxieties about how it and other European cities can cope with the rising frequency of such extreme weather events.

Dr Philipp Rode, executive director of LSE Cities, a research centre at the London School of Economics, said criticism before the heatwave that warnings from meteorologists, the media, urban planners and climate scientists were "hysterical" proved to be false on Tuesday.

"That idea has been completely debunked because the effects are fairly dramatic," Dr Rode said.

"Particularly, the fires became very symbolic for not just the unpreparedness, but also for not really appreciating what has been said for decades - that this would happen."

The heatwave led to huge wildfires in France, Spain, Italy and Greece, and parts of England reached 40 deg C for the first time on record on Tuesday, while Paris hit that mark for only the third time.

It is part of a worrying trend, driven by global warming, with temperatures worldwide on average higher than the late 19th century, before emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases became widespread. Scientists say that heatwaves have increased in frequency and intensity faster in Europe than in almost any other part of the planet.

London and other European cities at northern latitudes, where historically heat was a rare threat but cold a frequent one, need to adapt to remain liveable, Dr Rode said.

"We have prepared a very sophisticated infrastructure system, the railways, the energy systems, all the way to how we design school buildings and hospitals - for very specific climate," he said, with planning across Britain around a temperature span of about -10 deg C to 35 deg C. "And yesterday, we exceeded that, and that then results in these collapses."

London Ambulance Service said in a statement that there was a sustained demand for its service, which put the organisation under "extreme pressure", as a direct result of the heatwave. Early data showed that on Tuesday, there was a tenfold increase in emergency calls to treat heat exposure incidents compared with the previous week.

Mr Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said on Wednesday morning that Tuesday was the city fire service's busiest day since World War II.

Fire destroyed some 41 properties, many of them near grassy areas that had turned to kindling in the brutal heat, allowing blazes to spread quickly.

"It shows the consequences of climate change with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees," he said in an interview with BBC News.

Firefighters and their union said years of underfunding had left them woefully unprepared, with some crews on duty for as long as 14 hours without breaks, food or water, and no backup available.

Extreme weather fuelled by climate change has also hit European cities with severe flooding.

A year ago, fierce summer storms wreaked havoc from Britain to Croatia. Western Germany was hardest hit, with nearly 200 people killed, and London saw a month's worth of rain in one day, bringing much of the city to a standstill.

In a dense city like London, poor air quality, abundant pavement and a relative absence of greenery all reinforce one another's effects, said Ms Lean Doody, who leads the integrated cities and planning network for Europe for Arup, a British engineering firm.

Yet major cities remain largely unprepared for this new reality of extremes, leaving city officials struggling to respond.

NYTIMES