The European holiday destinations where 50ºC summers could become the norm

The Mediterranean has long represented the perfect British summer escape: guaranteed sunshine, warm seas and long evenings spent outdoors. But as climate change intensifies heatwaves across Southern Europe, the idea of simply chasing the sun is becoming more complicated. Holidaymakers heading abroad are increasingly arriving in destinations already facing the consequences of extreme heat, from wildfire risks to health warnings. The question scientists are now exploring is not whether Europe’s summers will become hotter, but how far temperatures could rise in the decades ahead. Shorts Spain, Portugal and Greece could be hit the hardest A future where parts of Europe experience 50ºC temperatures may sound unimaginable, but climate researchers warn that rising temperatures are increasing the chances of extreme heat events. Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, told The i Paper that countries around southern Europe and the Mediterranean – popular tourism hotspots like Spain, Portugal and Greece – are most likely to see 50°C summers soon. The highest temperature ever recorded in Europe was 48.8°C in Sicily in 2021. But there’s a chance we could soon hit the 50°C threshold, Bentley said. “We’ve seen temperatures over 40°C already [this year],” Bentley said. “We’ve never seen temperatures that high across Europe that early in the year, so it does set the scene for a record-breaking summer.” “As our climate continues to warm, I think it’s looking pretty likely that in the next decade we will see 50°C somewhere across the European continent,” she said. “It’s likely that that threshold will be broken in the next decade.” A new heatwave pushes temperatures up to 40°C in Granada, Spain (Photo: Alex Camara/Getty) With a “super” El Niño – which supercharges extreme weather – likely to develop this summer, Bill McGuire, professor of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL, told The i Paper he believes the 50°C European summer could come even sooner. “50°C could happen as early as later this summer, or – more likely – next year, when the heating impact of the building super El Niño really kicks in,” said McGuire, who also wrote The Fate of the World: a History and Future of the Climate Crisis. “After that, the frequency of 50°C-plus temperatures will steadily increase as we continue to add the weight of 800,000 Titanic’s worth of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year, and global heating keeps ramping up as a result,” he added. “Generally speaking, the furthest south regions are likely to lead the progressive increase in temperature, up to and above 50°C – so southern Spain, Sicily, Greece and Turkey.” The EU’s Copernicus programme, in its flagship climate report this year, found that Europe is warming faster than any other continent, at more than twice the global average rate. This could mean changes to future summer holiday plans. A survey by InsureandGo conducted in May found that three in four UK holidaymakers believe that familiar hotspots like Greece, Spain and Cyprus will be too hot to visit by 2030. When could 50ºC become more common? Climate projections do not suggest that every European holiday destination will regularly experience temperatures of 50ºC. Instead, scientists expect the hottest inland areas of Southern Europe to be the places where such extremes are most likely to occur first, particularly during exceptional heatwaves. Under scenarios where greenhouse gas emissions remain high, researchers suggest temperatures of this scale could become more possible from the middle to the latter part of the century. However, individual record-breaking events could occur earlier as climate change increases the likelihood of extreme heat. Professor Mat Collins, a climate scientist, cautioned against assuming 50ºC summers will become the norm across Europe. “50ºC is a pretty extreme temperature. I don’t think that we would necessarily see that kind of temperature anywhere this century on a regular basis, even under the most pessimistic scenario,” he said. Instead, he warned that the more immediate concern is the rise of prolonged periods of dangerous heat. “Certainly though, areas of the Mediterranean start to see heatwaves exceeding 40ºC for several days when we hit 2ºC of global warming,” Collins added. For Europe’s most popular holiday destinations, the future may not be defined by whether the sun continues to shine, but by how societies adapt to a summer climate that is becoming increasingly extreme.