In some parts of the world, heat grabs the headlines; elsewhere, it is the same old story. While much of the Middle East and Africa have long endured summer temperatures around 45°C, Europe has just stepped into that climatic territory… and it has not been easy. Over the last 15 years, temperatures have risen worldwide, but the speed and impact of that change vary drastically depending on the country. In some places, 50°C highs have become the new standard; in others, especially in southern Europe, we are (we’re) trying to adapt to a heat that in the past would have seemed unimaginable. But talking about the hottest countries in the world goes beyond current temperatures: it is about the pace of those changes, historical reference points, and how well equipped a place is to manage what lies ahead.
The science of extreme heat
Global warming does not heat the planet uniformly: the land heats faster than the ocean; arid regions heat faster than humid ones; countries near the equator and inland in the high subtropics (which include most of the Middle East, North Africa, the southern part of Asia, and parts of Australia) are especially exposed. According to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, global average temperatures have risen by about 1.28°C compared to preindustrial levels, but the pace in the Middle East, for example, nearly doubles this rate. In the Sahel, surface temperatures increase at a rate of 1.5 times the global average, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Several factors come into play: the lack of vegetation, scarce rainfall, rapid urbanization and the so-called urban heat island effect, in which the concrete of urbanized areas traps heat. The result? Higher highs, longer heat waves and shorter intervals between them.
