An extreme heat wave that meteorologists call an “apocalypse” broiled much of Europe and the United Kingdom on Monday, and hundreds of people died because of record high temperatures and ferocious wildfires.

At least 748 heat-related deaths have been reported in the heat wave in Spain and neighboring Portugal, where temperatures reached 117 degrees this month.

Wales reported its hottest temperature on record Monday of 95.5 degrees, the U.K. Met Office said. 

Extreme heat wave broils Europe

An extreme heat wave that meteorologists are calling an “apocalypse” continued to broil much of Europe and the United Kingdom on Monday, and authorities issued dire warnings as temperatures were forecast to reach 104 degrees in southern Britain.

What you should know:

• All-time heat in Britain? Meteorologists say the all-time high-temperature record could be surpassed on Tuesday. The current record stands at 102 degrees, set on July 25, 2019.

• Why is heat such a big deal? Yes, it’s summer, but in Britain and across most of Europe, few homes, apartments or schools have air conditioning, making residents particularly vulnerable.

• Is climate change to blame? In short, yes: climate scientists say heat waves are more intense and more frequent because of human-caused warming.

Studies have showed that extreme heat will increase in frequency, intensity and duration because of the climate crisis.

Gabriel Vecchi, a climate scientist at Princeton University, told CNN that the hot-and-cold record imbalance is a signal of the climate crisis, and scientists have noted a trend in recent years that hot extremes are outpacing cold ones.

“This is what you would expect from a planetary warming that’s been driven in large part from greenhouse gases; this is now the world we’re living in,”

Vecchi told CNN, noting that “it’s fair to think that almost every heatwave that we see right now has some influence from global warming.”

In the US, more than 40 million people were under heat warnings and advisories on Monday from North Dakota to Texas, where high temperatures were expected to climb into the 90s and 100s.

Dozens of temperature records could be broken through the week, forecasters warned.

Global scientists last year concluded that with every fraction of a degree of warming, the effects of the climate crisis worsen.

While extreme heat events would still occur without climate change, the increasing intensity and frequency of these events in recent decades has been linked to the rise of fossil fuel emissions and observed global warming.

Is climate change to blame for the heat wave?

Scientists said heat waves are more intense, more frequent and longer because of climate change.

“Climate change is driving this heat wave, just as it is driving every heat wave now,” said Friederike Otto, a scientist at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College in  London. “Greenhouse gas emissions, from burning fossil fuels like coal, gas and oil, are making heat waves hotter, longer-lasting and more frequent.

“Heat waves that used to be rare are now common; heat waves that used to be impossible are now happening and killing people. We saw this with the Pacific Northwest heat wave last year, which would have been almost impossible without human-caused warming,” Otto said. 

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