The heat is changing the way of life - The town of Floridia in Sicily recorded 48.8 degrees Celsius in 2021
Five years ago, a weather station near the Sicilian town of Floridia recorded 48.8 degrees Celsius, the highest temperature officially recorded in Europe. The 2021 record made Floridia a symbol of climate warming in Europe as the continent emerged from COVID-19 restrictions. Today, increasingly frequent and prolonged heat waves are once again keeping people indoors.
The change is visible throughout the city of about 20,000. The Piazza del Popolo, once the center of Floridia, now stands largely empty for most of the day during the summer. The heat often lingers until the evening, when families traditionally take out chairs outside their homes to catch the breeze.
"Many people are discouraged from leaving their homes, even in the evening, because there is no relief from the heat," said Luigi Pasotti, head of Sicily's Agrometeorological Information Service (SIAS).
On August 11, 2021, the meteorological service measured a temperature of 48.8 degrees Celsius in Monasterio, a rural area about 5 km from the center of Floridia. In 2024, the World Meteorological Organization certified it as the highest temperature ever recorded in continental Europe, a record that still stands.
While the record has attracted international attention, climate scientists say isolated extremes are less important than the ongoing rise in average temperatures. “We are no longer talking about temperature extremes, which can last a day or two as happened in 2021, but weeks or even months of consistently high temperatures,” Pasotti said.
Over the past decade, global warming has contributed to more frequent extreme weather events, from droughts and fires to heavy rainfall and cyclones. Agriculture, the mainstay of Sicily's economy, is increasingly threatened by this climate change. In 2021, the Iblei Mountains area alone lost more than 3,000 beehives, while honey production fell by 80%. For beekeepers in Floridia, summer has become a terrible season, as extreme heat threatens to wipe out entire bee colonies.
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