The Acropolis in Greece shut for hours, record-breaking ocean temperatures off Croatia and plans to feed zoo animals popsicles in Italy — southern Europe is baking under a “hellishly hot” heat wave.
To beat the heat, Rome’s zoo made plans to offer popsicle respite for the animals later this week when temperatures were expected to top 38 degrees (100 F).
“It really feels like we are in an oven with a hair dryer pointed at us,” said Patrizia Valerio, who had just arrived in Rome from Varese to catch a Coldplay concert Tuesday night.
Fellow concert-goer Mattia Rossi noted that the freak storms that hit Italy earlier this summer were evidence of climate change wreaking havoc on the southern Mediterranean’s weather systems.
The climate crisis, driven mainly from humans burning fossil fuels, is now playing a role in every heat wave on the planet, scientists say, making them longer, more frequent and more intense.
The brutal heat wave hitting southern Europe has so far spared Paris, which is set to host the Olympics later this month.
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