{"text":[[{"start":9.1,"text":"Europe’s intense spring heatwave showed how quickly climate extremes had become “the new normal”, scientists said, after the month of May broke a series of national records and was the second warmest globally."}],[{"start":20.9,"text":"The EU’s Earth observation service Copernicus said the speed of the swing from cooler-than-average temperatures to high temperatures in western countries had given people, crops and ecosystems little time to acclimatise."}],[{"start":33.849999999999994,"text":"The UK, France, Ireland and Portugal experienced particularly severe conditions last month. Spain had 101 heat-related deaths, the highest for the month since monitoring began. In France and the UK, drownings were more common as people sought relief in unfamiliar waters."}],[{"start":52.49999999999999,"text":"“[The] unusually early and intense heatwave demonstrates how quickly climate extremes are becoming the new normal rather than the exception,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":67.85,"text":"Across large parts of the continent the “feels-like” temperature rose to between 35C and 40C, which takes into account the effect of humidity, wind and solar radiation on the human body."}],[{"start":80.85,"text":"“While remarkable, the event is consistent with Europe’s rapid warming and the long-term trend towards more frequent, more intense and earlier-season heatwaves,” the monthly Copernicus report said."}],[{"start":91.89999999999999,"text":"The global average surface air temperature for May was 1.42C above the pre-industrial average at 15.8C. The average sea ice extent was 4 per cent below average in the Arctic and 9 per cent below average in the Antarctic."}],[{"start":108.6,"text":"The warmest May on record globally was in 2024 — also the world’s hottest year — when the global surface air temperature reached 15.91C or more than 1.5C since the industrial era."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":122.39999999999999,"text":"Europe is the fastest-warming continent, in part because of its proximity to the Arctic where the melt of ice and snow exposes darker ground that absorbs solar rays."}],[{"start":132.25,"text":"Warm air also holds more moisture. While large parts of western, central and eastern Europe experienced drier-than-average conditions, there was widespread flooding in Turkey, Bulgaria and Moldova, along with wetter-than-average conditions in north-west continental Europe, north Scandinavia and the Black Sea region. "}],[{"start":152.4,"text":"Other wetter parts of the world last month included western China, as well as areas of Brazil and Australia. In contrast, the central US, large areas of Central Asia, south-western Australia and South America were drier than average. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":167.35,"text":"Temperatures in the tropical Pacific were “exceptionally high” as the eastern part of the ocean continued to transition towards El Niño conditions. This Pacific Ocean heating effect typically elevates global temperatures and exacerbates extreme weather events. "}],[{"start":182.5,"text":"Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said this week at the opening of international climate talks in the German city of Bonn that the effects of the El Niño warming event would be “supercharged by the climate crisis” and would “promise further suffering and inflationary shocks”. "}],[{"start":null,"text":"

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