As temps in southern Europe reach record heights, holiday playgrounds may become unbearable

UK Guardian, July 21st, 2007

Over-heated Med stokes tourism fears

Greece is now on a war footing against weather phenomena 'the likes of which we have never seen', the country's Public Order Minister, Byron Polydoras, warned this weekend.

Polydoras was speaking as countries around the Mediterranean roasted, with temperatures soaring to 'furnace levels', as one meteorologist described it.

Temperatures are likely to reach 43C in the shade this week, making this the hottest summer on record for Greece in the past century. Macedonia has declared a state of emergency. Spain, Italy and France are experiencing droughts that are measuring up to become the worst on record.

According to the most recent bulletin from the French government, the situation remains 'preoccupying', with recent rain in the north failing to replenish subterranean reservoirs.

Many politicians now fear the Mediterranean coast may soon become too hot to sustain a viable tourist industry. 'The Mediterranean climate of this country no longer exists. It is changing, perhaps even faster than we expected,' said Michalis Petrakis, director of Greece's Institute of Environmental Research at the National Observatory in Athens.

Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Cyprus have all endured searing temperatures over the past few weeks as a region of high pressure extended east from the Azores, blocking weather fronts that normally keep the eastern Mediterranean fairly cool at this time of year. Forest fires have been raging across the region - Greece's fire service reported 115 fires in one 24-hour period last week.

Last week a five-day blaze on Mount Parnitha destroyed vast tracts of trees, along with hundreds of plants endemic to the region. Unique species of deer, turtles, snakes and hares were killed.

Greek television has carried nightly footage of firefighters battling fires from Thessaloniki in the north to Crete in the south. Tourists had to flee the flames, not least on the Aegean island of Kos, where hoteliers asked guests to pack up and leave even in zones deemed to be safe. As was the case in Athens, many fires came within yards of apartment buildings.

'Nightmare in the land of fire,' headlined the mass-selling daily Eleftherotypia on Friday. 'Many parts of Greece that have surrendered to the fiery nightmare are living through dramatic hours. It is a desperate situation.'

Despite the extreme heat, the Greek Tourism Ministry said the country was braced for its third successive bumper tourist season, with Britons, who begin arriving en masse this weekend, expected to lead an estimated 15 million visitors this year.

But the industry is deeply worried. The Mediterranean's worsening pollution and shifting weather patterns may start to drive away tourists.

In France, weeks of searing weather have brought climate change back on to the agenda. Newspapers have been full of images of parched river beds - such as the Garonne in Toulouse, where locals can walk on the baked mud of the bed. This year's report from the government's climate change experts predicted temperatures rising between two and four degrees before the end of the century. According to Meteo-France, the national meteorologists, winters may be five degrees warmer with summers three degrees hotter.

'The projections lead us to believe that global warming will affect the Mediterranean more than the rest of the planet,' said Laurent Li, of the national Centre for Scientific Research. 'The Mediterranean is a transition zone between a mild, wet climate to the north and a dry, hot climate in the south. The steep difference makes the Med particularly sensitive and vulnerable to changes.' In one soon-to-be-released study, researchers project rainfall at only two thirds of its 1961 level by the end of this century.

'Less precipitation, more evaporation: the two phenomena together will lead to the drying out of the zone around the Mediterranean,' said Jean Jouzel, director of a French research centre and author of Climate: Dangerous Games.

Less rainfall means less flow in the rivers and a saltier sea, say experts. At the same time demand for water is rising steeply. Olive and citrus trees have given way to thirsty crops such as sugar cane, strawberries and maize. There are also 276 golf courses on the Spanish coast alone, with 200 more planned. Last week Italian specialists announced that the River Po was drying up.

'Since 2003 the forests of the Mediterranean basin, though perfectly adapted to drought, are suffering,' Daniel Vallauri, a specialist in forestry for the World Wide Fund, said. 'There are fewer leaves, a loss of fertility. The fauna and flora will have to adapt or migrate elsewhere.'

A recent book by Michel Houllebecq, a French cult novelist, was set in a world hit by an environmental catastrophe where the human race has been reduced to savages wandering deserts on the coasts of the Mediterranean. Despite its bleakness, it was a bestseller.

'Greece's weather is becoming tropical, and if tourists want that they might as well go to South-East Asia,' Nikos Economou, the commercial manager of GATS, a Mediterranean tour operator, said. 'I think there is a strong possibility we will see a change in booking patterns as tourism adapts to the new climate. There will be more emphasis on business in April, May and June than August and July. The Red Sea resorts of Egypt went that way and no one is saying it yet, but I'm sure Greece will follow.'