The first type of extreme weather I am going to focus on is heat waves, followed by drought and then flooding. .
Over the last decade, there have been many examples of extreme weather. One example that affected the majority of Europe was the 2003 heatwave. A heatwave is defined as a period of abnormally hot weather often accompanied by high humidity. It lasted 2 months and while some enjoyed the hot weather, others suffered from it. Temperatures recorded in this time were an average of 10% higher than usual in the UK. The impacts of the heatwave were wide ranging. It left over 30,000 dead and was the worst natural disaster Europe experienced in 50 years. The lack of rainfall meant very dry conditions, with forest fires breaking out across Europe and farmers suffering from dying livestock and crop failure. Demand for electricity soared as people turned up air conditioning and fridges, but the high demand for this was a problem for nuclear power stations particularly in France and Germany which relied on river water for cooling. In some places, river levels were so low that the cooling process was impossible and nuclear plants had to shut down. Transport suffered as railway tracks buckled in the heat and speed restrictions were imposed to increase safety measures and prevent trains from derailing. Road surfaces also melted meaning there was more traffic and blocked roads. Due to the high mediterranean heat, tourism increased in parts of the UK as people stayed at home, but ski resorts in the Alps suffered as extreme snow and glacier melts led to increased rock and ice fall.
The cause of the 2003 heatwave was summer anticyclones which are areas of high pressure, and give clear, calm weather. In an anticyclone, air is descending. As it descends, it warms up causing any water vapor in the air to evaporate. This prevents clouds from forming meaning that all the Sun's energy reaches the Earth's surface, rising global temperatures drastically.
