分类： environment

As a record-breaking early heat wave bakes much of Central Europe, keepers at Prague’s leading zoological park have turned to a simple but effective solution: massive quantities of ice to protect their animal residents from dangerous extreme temperatures. On Thursday, as forecasts predicted peak temperatures would climb to 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) by mid-afternoon, zoo teams rolled out ice beds across outdoor enclosures, giving heat-sensitive animals a much-needed escape from the sweltering conditions.

Among the first to take advantage of the cooling treat were 16-year-old polar bear twin brothers Aleut and Gregor. Born in Germany’s Nuremberg Zoo and now long-term residents of Prague, the pair immediately began rolling and playing in the beds of ice cubes, combining essential heat relief with an entertaining enrichment activity. “The bears cool off with it and at the same time it’s an enrichment of their life in the zoo,” explained Filip Mašek, the official spokesperson for Prague Zoo.

The ice cooling program is not a new initiative for the facility. Mašek noted that the zoo first launched the practice two years ago, a proactive adjustment to the growing impacts of climate change, which has steadily increased the number of extreme heat days across Central Europe each summer.

Of all the zoo’s residents, the polar bears have proven to be the biggest fans of the ice protocol. Though they have adapted to the region’s temperate European climate over their 16 years in the region, they still benefit greatly from the chance to mimic the cold Arctic conditions their species evolved to inhabit.

This year, the zoo’s original scheduling aligned with long-term seasonal patterns: the ice delivery and distribution plan was set to launch in July and August, the months historically marked by the highest summer temperatures in the Czech Republic. But shifting weather patterns driven by climate change upended that timeline. An unprecedented early heat wave hit Central Europe in late June, bringing the Czech Republic its hottest recorded temperature in history: 41.9 degrees Celsius (107.4 degrees Fahrenheit) on June 28.

The unseasonal extreme heat forced the zoo to roll out its ice program weeks earlier than planned, and officials say they will adjust their timeline for future years to account for the new normal of earlier heat waves. “The weather keeps surprising us,” Mašek said. “We’ve been taught a lesson,” he added, confirming ice will be prepped and ready for deployment much sooner in 2025.

While polar bears are the most enthusiastic users of the ice cooling program, they are far from the only animals that benefit. In previous years, the zoo has distributed ice treats to a range of species, including otters, elephants, and parrots. Gorillas have even received special blocks of ice with frozen fruit hidden inside, combining cooling relief with a foraging enrichment activity. For other species better adapted to warm temperatures, the zoo provides additional cooling options including access to shaded enclosures, indoor climate-controlled habitats, and shallow pools for swimming.

A stunning and alarming moment of climate change in action has been caught on camera, as a colossal iceberg flipped completely over in coastal waters near Greenland. The raw, eye-opening footage was recorded by a casual observer in the area, who happened to be in position to document the rare, dramatic event when the massive frozen structure shifted and collapsed. As the iceberg rolled, the sudden movement displaced enormous volumes of seawater, sending a large, churning wave surging across the nearby fjord. The video quickly spread across social media platforms after being shared, drawing widespread attention to the ongoing, rapid changes occurring to Greenland’s ice sheet amid rising global temperatures. Glaciologists note that iceberg calving and overturning are not entirely unusual events, but the increasing frequency of large iceberg break-offs in the region serves as a visible, tangible indicator of accelerating ice melt driven by anthropogenic climate change. Unlike steady glacier melt that occurs gradually and is often harder for the public to observe, a full flip of a giant iceberg creates an immediate, dramatic visual of how dramatically Arctic ice systems are shifting in response to a warming planet.

A devastating wave of wildfires fanned by hurricane-force winds has torn through Southern Europe, leaving three firefighters dead and forcing mass evacuations across multiple countries, with the popular Greek tourist island of Crete among the hardest-hit regions.

On the Greek island of Crete, roughly 8,000 residents and tourists were evacuated overnight from the Rethymno region, where an out-of-control wildfire that ignited Wednesday has expanded to a 15-kilometer active front. Wind gusts in the area have peaked at 125 kilometers per hour, reaching level 11 on the Beaufort scale, classified as violent wind. These extreme conditions have hampered suppression efforts, grounding aerial firefighting aircraft on Thursday morning and preventing crews from gaining the upper hand.

The disaster has already claimed three lives: two Crete-based firefighters, 58-year-old Emmanouil Stratidakis and 25-year-old Pantelis Diamantakis, who became trapped and died near Krya Vrysi, and a third firefighter killed near the Peloponnese port of Gytheio. The Greek Fire Service has issued official condolences, and the two fallen Crete firefighters are scheduled for burial Thursday.

As of Thursday, the full scale of property damage remains unconfirmed, though multiple residential structures and large swathes of agricultural land have already been destroyed by the blaze. Roughly 224 firefighters, supported by 53 ground engines, 11 specialized response units and two aircraft, have been deployed to contain the Rethymno fire. Evacuated civilians have been relocated to temporary emergency shelters in neighboring municipalities, with dedicated provisions arranged for visiting tourists who make up a large share of Crete’s mid-summer population.

Crete’s wildfire crisis is part of a broader outbreak of extreme heat and wildfire activity across the European continent, driven by long-term warming that has made the region the fastest-warming continent on Earth, according to data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Europe has warmed twice as fast as the global average, fueling more frequent, intense heatwaves, severe drought conditions, and catastrophic wildfire seasons.

The crisis extends far beyond Greece. In Spain, 600 people have been evacuated from a wildfire burning near the Portuguese border in Zamora, while a separate blaze in Ávila province has burned more than 43,000 hectares over the past week, making it the largest recorded wildfire in Spanish history. Fires near Madrid have stopped spreading, allowing thousands of displaced residents to return to their homes. Neighboring Portugal has reported five injuries from a fire in the eastern town of Valpaços.

In Turkey, hundreds of homeowners have been evacuated as wildfires spread across the region, but authorities report most blazes there have now been brought under control. In France, the country’s largest wildfire since 1949, which has destroyed 42,000 hectares of land in the Gironde region, has not spread for three consecutive days. Cooler temperatures and forecast rain for Thursday are expected to further help suppression efforts, though several southeastern French regions have been placed under orange heatwave alerts starting at midday local time.

Meteorological forecasts warn that the high-risk fire conditions currently concentrated in Southern Europe will shift toward central Europe over the coming week, with Greece and Turkey expected to remain among the most severely impacted regions.

LEGE-CAP FERRET, France — A weeks-long wildfire crisis that has scorched more than 42,000 hectares of land in southwestern France’s Gironde region — an area four times larger than the entire city of Paris — may finally see some relief as shifting meteorological conditions bring cooler air, elevated humidity and predicted rain to the fire-ravaged Atlantic coast.

As catastrophic wildfires scorch southern France and Spain and a second blistering heat wave builds across Western Europe, a years-long persistent drought is pushing one of Europe’s most critical waterways to unprecedented lows, laying bare the tangible, immediate impacts of human-caused climate change for communities and industries across the continent. The Danube River, which cuts a 1,770-mile path through 10 European nations from the Black Forest of southwestern Germany to the Black Sea, has dropped to never-recorded depths along most of its route, revealing long-submerged rock formations, sand bars, and century-old shipwrecks that have remained hidden for generations.

In Budapest, the capital of Hungary, the country’s national water authority recorded a water level of just 23 centimeters (9 inches) on Wednesday morning, a full 10 centimeters below the previous all-time low set in 2018. With no meaningful rainfall forecast for the coming days and temperatures projected to surge past 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) across the entire Danube basin, officials warn the river will continue to recede further.

Much of Central Europe has faced persistent, extreme drought for the majority of 2022, and back-to-back record heat waves have accelerated evaporation, draining rivers and streams at an alarming rate. Data from the Hungarian Meteorological Service shows 90-day total precipitation across nearly the entire country is 80 to 130 millimeters (3.1 to 5.1 inches) below the long-term average for the period.

On Tuesday, after the Danube hit its new record low, Budapest-based photographer Gábor Kertész traveled to the base of the city’s iconic Margaret Bridge — a spot that is almost always submerged, now exposed as a dry sand shoal — to capture the unprecedented scene. “The bare rocks, the dry sand bars around the bridge pillars… it’s all shocking to see how things were before and how they are now,” Kertész told reporters. “Where will this lead, what will happen? We don’t know that yet, but this must be the result of climate change.”

The record low water has already upended key economic activities across every nation along the river’s path. Popular international river cruises, a mainstay of Central European tourism that brings millions of visitors to Budapest annually, have been forced to dock kilometers upriver from their customary terminals, forcing passengers to arrange alternate transportation to reach city sightseeing routes. Commercial cargo shipping has nearly ceased entirely across large stretches of the river, according to Hungary’s Ministry of Transport and Investment.

In northwestern Bulgaria, where the Danube forms the natural border with Romania, authorities evacuated 186 passengers from the cruise ship Viking Ullur on Tuesday after the vessel ran aground on an unexpected shallow shoal near the port city of Vidin. The ship had been scheduled to restock food and water supplies in Vidin, but could not reach the port after running aground, leaving passengers without adequate provisions, according to Bulgaria’s state-run news agency BTA. While all passengers were safely evacuated, the ship’s 52-person crew may remain on board for an extended period while authorities assess navigation conditions and plan refloating operations, Bulgarian police confirmed.

Further downstream in northern Serbia, hundreds of small recreational vessels and dozens of large cargo ships remain stranded on dried-out riverbanks near the city of Novi Sad. Radovan Segrt, a houseboat owner who operates popular river excursion tours for tourists, told the Associated Press that the Danube’s shoreline has retreated “some 15 to 20 meters (50 to 65 feet) from its original position.” “The summer season is over now, as far as boat riding is concerned,” Segrt said.

Beyond transportation and tourism, the dropping water levels have also forced cuts to critical nuclear energy production across the region. The Danube’s cool water is routinely used to cool reactor cores at multiple nuclear plants along its banks, and reduced flow has made safe operation impossible for some facilities. In Romania, where Danube flow dropped to just 1,630 cubic meters per second — roughly one-third of the typical average for July — authorities shut down one reactor unit at the Cernavoda nuclear power plant on Tuesday for safety reasons, and announced a second unit would be taken offline imminently.

In Hungary, the Paks nuclear plant — which generates nearly 40% of the country’s total electricity supply — began powering down one reactor on Wednesday after two consecutive rounds of output reductions at two other reactors over the prior 48 hours, all due to limited access to cooling water.

The exposed riverbed has brought unexpected oddities alongside the widespread disruption, including both hidden dangers and rare opportunities for amateur historians and treasure hunters. Last week, Budapest officials closed the Margaret Bridge for 48 hours after an unexploded World War II aerial bomb was exposed by receding waters at the bridge’s base, forcing a controlled detonation by bomb disposal units.

Amateur treasure hunter Zsolt Horváth told reporters he was taking advantage of the extreme low water to recover historical artifacts from the exposed riverbank on Tuesday, using a powerful magnet to pull metal objects from the mud. He said he had already uncovered rare items including an early 20th-century radio amplifier and bullet casings from both World Wars. “Having so little water in the Danube is a blessing for this kind of activity, otherwise, it’s a curse,” Horváth explained.

The report featured contributions from Associated Press correspondents across four European nations, including Stephen McGrath in Leamington Spa, England, Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria, Béla Szandelszky in Budapest, Hungary, and Radul Radovanovic in Novi Sad, Serbia.

Amid sweltering temperatures soaring to nearly 40 degrees Celsius, massive wildfires have been ravaging the pine forests of southwestern France’s Gironde region for a full week, displacing tens of thousands of residents and tourists and triggering a massive, multi-pronged firefighting operation.

On the front lines, the battle against the blazes combines high-flying aerial support and relentless ground effort. Three Canadair water-bombing aircraft arrived in tight formation, banking sharply toward a towering black plume of smoke before releasing their combined payload of more than 3,000 gallons of water directly onto the advancing flames. The air assault continued immediately after, as a line of helicopters followed up, dumping streams of bright red fire retardant to slow the fire’s spread.

Once the initial aerial assault eases the intensity of a flare-up, ground crews move in on foot to contain the blaze. But with parched, tinder-dry conditions across the region, reignitions are a constant, deadly threat. Twenty minutes after the flare-up observed by reporters was brought under control, a new fire ignited spontaneously on the opposite side of the road, prompting a harried order from a law enforcement officer: “Leave now!” As smoke thickened rapidly, the reporting team was forced to evacuate.

The scale of the inferno is so vast that smoke drifts across entire landscapes, blanketing empty highways and abandoned villages from Bordeaux westward. The underlying conditions explain the fire’s explosive spread: the region’s soil has turned to powder, layered with thick accumulations of dry pine cones and dead foliage that ignite and spread flames almost instantly.

For many local residents, the urge to defend their homes has overridden evacuation orders. Pierre Alexandre, whose bungalow sits adjacent to the original fire’s epicenter, refused to leave when first ordered by firefighters, sending his wife and daughter to safety but allowing his 19-year-old son Clément to stay with him. Alexandre even climbed onto his roof to monitor the advancing blaze, capturing an image that looked like it was taken at night due to the thick, dark smoke blanketing the area mid-afternoon. Though he acknowledges he and his son are not trained firefighters and cannot stop the blaze on their own, his choice to stay reflects the deep connection locals have to the land they call home.

For professional firefighters, the fight is less about extinguishing the entire blaze and more about a exhausting game of cat and mouse, containing flare-ups one by one rather than achieving a full victory. Backing up the professional crews is a sprawling army of local volunteers, many of whom have returned to the region from far away to help protect their communities.

Twenty-six-year-old Hugo, who grew up in the area, traveled back from his home in Bali to defend his mother’s house in the village of Arès, which sits dangerously close to the active fire line. “If it’s too late, at least we tried,” he said defianty as he refilled his water tank. “Fifty thousand hectares has already been destroyed, what will we tell our children?”

Twenty-three-year-old Maëlys, a nurse who has lived in the region her whole life, splits her days between her hospital shift and fighting fires on the front lines, her face permanently smudged with soot. “It’s horrible, it’s our home, it’s our region, it’s our forest, it’s where we grew up, it’s where our family live, where we live, it’s horrible. I feel a lot of sadness,” she said. Working with friends who own large water tanks, she helps extinguish small new flare-ups before they can grow into larger blazes.

Firefighting reinforcements have poured in from every corner of France, from northern Brittany to the southern cities of Marseille and Lyon. When crews are not actively dousing active flames, they carry out a technique called noyer—French for “drowning”—where they douse soil and unburned vegetation to prevent new fires from taking hold and spreading.

While the largest blazes in Gironde are currently under relative control, officials warn the infernos are far from fully extinguished. With high temperatures forecast to hold and the landscape remaining primed for ignition, the dangerous game of whack-a-mole on the fire lines will continue for the foreseeable future.