Warning over surging Greece temperatures as expert says 'hot spot'

Temperatures are already well above 30C in Greece holiday hotspots - as one expert has shed light on why they will continue to rise. Europe has seen extreme weather conditions in recent days - including Greece - and Dr Kostas Lagouvardos from the National Observatory of Athens says that will continue.

Greece experienced its earliest heatwave on record this month, resulting in multiple fatalities and forcing the closure of schools and tourist attractions. Locations like Kos, Rhodes and Crete are among the extremes - and attract hundreds of thousands of UK tourists every year.

Dr Lagouvardos told EuroNews the long-term prognosis seems to be that Greece's temperatures will rise more than the global average. He said: "The Mediterranean is a hot spot of the climate crisis."

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Although temperatures have slightly fallen below the official heatwave benchmark of 38C, there's little relief expected for the remainder of the summer season. Meanwhile, Greece is at the forefront of human-induced climate change in Europe.

Last year, the country was scorched by an unprecedented 16-day-long heatwave, leading to the EU's largest ever wildfire as an area double the size of Athens was engulfed in flames between July and August. The disaster claimed at least 28 lives and left dozens injured.

The Greek population barely had time to recover before lethal floods hit in September, with some regions receiving a year's worth of rainfall in a single day due to Storm Daniel.

Europe is the fastest-warming continent globally, with temperatures here increasing approximately twice as fast as the global average. This is corroborated by a recent report from the UN's World Meteorological Organization and the European Union's climate agency, Copernicus.

Particularly in the summer, central and southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean region experience the most intense warming, according to Copernicus.

"The existence of many islands that are exposed to the sea makes it more vulnerable," says Dr Lagouvardos, primarily due to strong winds. "We have a system that works altogether - the sea, the air - and as one of the components in this system is warming, then it warms the other."

Last year, a summer heatwave pushed the temperatures of the Mediterranean waters to a new record. While these winds are typically prevalent in July and August, they have started making their presence felt earlier, in June.