Predictions of the hottest day on record in the UK come as British academics call for heat waves to be given names, to ensure the associated dangers are conveyed clearly to the public.
“The Met Office must do more to warn people about the dangers of heat waves and should give names to heat waves the way it does for winter storms,” the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science said Tuesday.
Many flocked to the beach to cool down in Brighton, southern England on Tuesday.The institute cited data from Public Health England to highlight an estimated 863 “excess deaths” as a result of three heat wave events last summer, which was the hottest on record in England.
“Far more people in the UK have died from recent heat waves than from storms, so it should be uncontroversial to start applying names to both,” said Bob Ward, the institute’s director of policy.
He added: “The government and its agencies, including the Met Office, must lead the way in communicating the growing dangers of heat waves and other impacts of climate change, so that the British public are better informed and can protect themselves.”
“If the government does not lead on this issue, it also risks encouraging the media to continue to underplay these risks in their coverage, and there will continue to be preventable deaths,” Ward said.