‘Zoe’ Becomes the World’s First Named Heat Wave__________________________________________________
CLIMATEWIRE | The world’s first named heat wave hit Seville, Spain, this week, pushing temperatures past 110 degrees Fahrenheit and earning the most severe tier in the city’s new heat wave ranking system... according to proMETEO Sevilla, Seville’s new heat wave ranking system.
Zoe is the first named heat wave to hit Seville since it officially launched a new pilot program last month for naming and ranking heat waves, similar to hurricanes (Climatewire, June 22). Only the most severe heat waves get names, designated this year in reverse alphabetical order. After Zoe, comes Yago, Xenia, Wenceslao and Vega.
The program is a collaboration between the city of Seville and the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (Arsht-Rock), with other partners including the Spanish Office for Climate Change and several Spanish universities and research institutes. It takes a three-tiered approach to categorizing heat waves in Seville, with Category 1 as the lowest ranking and Category 3 as the most severe.
Climate change is causing heat waves to become more frequent, more intense and longer-lasting all over the world, increasing the risks to human health. Seville’s new naming and ranking system is intended to heighten public awareness about the dangers of extreme heat.
It’s currently the only system with a naming component. But other cities are following suit with similar ranking programs. Athens, Greece, recently announced a new system for categorizing heat waves, while several cities across the United States are launching similar pilot programs of their own, including Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee and Kansas City, Mo.
Above post a follow up on this post from just one month ago 6-27-22: