Most Homes In The United Kingdom Have No Air Conditioning

I still cannot believe what I am reading. The United Kingdom (UK) Met Office, essentially their version of the U.S. National Weather Service, is forecasting unprecedented temperatures for early next week. In a press release, the organization writes, “For the first time temperatures of 40°C have been forecast in the UK and the Met Office has issued the first ever Red warning for exceptional heat.” If you don’t speak in Celsius that translates to air temperatures of 104°F. That’s quite extreme for Georgia where I am located, but for the UK it is unchartered territory. Most homes don’t have air conditioning units so this sets up a potentially deadly scenario.

The UK uses a color coded heat risk alert system. Red has never been used before this week. High pressure has been the dominant meteorological factor associated with the heat in Europe, but a slight shift in the pattern will allow southerly flow to advect warmer temperatures further northward within the continent according to the Met Office. For context, I have been following UK-based meteorologist Paul Knigtley. He recently tweeted, “37C – what context can we ascribe to reaching or exceed this in the UK? Well, only 4 previous days have attained this in the long UK temperature record: Aug 3, 1990, Aug 10th, 2003, July 25th, 2019, and July 31st, 2020. Note that none are before 1990, and 3 are since 2000.”

Met Office climate scientist Dr Nikos Christidis said, “In a recent study we found that the likelihood of extremely hot days in the UK has been increasing and will continue to do so during the course of the century, with the most extreme temperatures expected to be observed in the southeast of England.” Under normal circumstances, according to the Met Office, temperatures above 40°C somewhere in the UK would be have return intervals of between 100 and 300 years. This interval may be reduced to 15 years by 2100 due to climate change.

What concerns me is that most homes in the UK don’t have air conditioning. A 2008 report found that only 0.5% of UK homes had air conditioning. More recent numbers are around 3% according to a study tweeted by UK-based meteorologist and catastrophe modeler James Cosgrove. It is far more common in the workplace than residential homes. My mind keeps going back to the 2003 European Heatwave that killed approximately 30,000 people according to numerous assessments. Britannica.com notes, “Even nightly temperatures were higher than the average summer midday highs….heat was particularly severe in France, where the temperature remained around 99 °F (37 °C) for more than a week in August in some areas.”

For this current event, evening temperatures will also be elevated, particularly in cities because of the urban heat island. A Level 4 UK Health Security Agency Heat Health Alert is in effect for early next week. According to the Met Office press release, “This is level of alert is used when a heatwave is so severe and/or prolonged that its effects extend outside the health and social care system.” At that level, even people outside the normally-vulnerable groups (elderly, children, communities of color, poor) are at risk. In addition to heat – health risks, there is also an elevated risk of fires.

Sadly, when I searched for stock photos of “heat” or “heatwaves” for this article, I mostly found images of people playing in water fountains or eating ice cream. This is a fundamentally flawed way that heat has been reported, and that must rapidly change. The level of heat expected in the UK is deadly and likely a more common reality. We must cover heat like this as a threat not a holiday.