JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
It hit 104 degrees today in Rennes in the Brittany region of northwestern France. That is a place known for cool, rainy summers, but not this summer. Europe is now in its fifth heat wave of the season. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports from Paris, where the high reached 99 today.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: The streets of Paris are baking, and there's a hot wind that blows. It doesn't even cool down at night. It's our fifth heat wave of the summer, and people are absolutely exhausted.
ADELE VEZILIER: Really hard, especially when in the night, it doesn't go down.
BEARDSLEY: Twenty-year-old Adele Vezilier and her father Jann Vezilier are hurrying home where they say it's a little cooler than the street. Like most Parisians, they don't have air conditioning, but they close their shades all day to block the sun and open at night for cooler air.
JANN VEZILIER: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "It's this succession of heat waves that's so hard," says the father. "Before, we would have maybe one per summer."
Paris summers historically hovered in the mid-80s. Not anymore - the first shocking blast of heat came in 2003, killing tens of thousands across Europe, mostly older people. Now they're coming every year several times. Heat waves have intensified over the years because of human-caused climate change. The high temperatures and intense drought this year have sparked wildfires that have burned through hundreds of thousands of acres in France and Spain. Olivier Proust is a weathercaster with Meteo France, the national weather service.
OLIVIER PROUST: The new climate is every day rewriting its own story. I'm sorry to say that these conditions are the new patterns of summer in France and in all the Western Europe.
BEARDSLEY: Scientists say Europe is heating faster than any other continent for two main reasons. The atmospheric and oceanic currents buffeting it, like the Gulf Stream, are changing and intensifying, and Europe is the closest continent to the Arctic, where melting glaciers mean the Earth is absorbing more heat and sunlight. Parisians are already changing their habits to adapt to the warming climate. The Seine River, shunned for bathing for more than a century, has now become a regular swimming hole. Camille Cochin and Francois Gerard have just had a dip at the docks built by the Eiffel Tower.
CAMILLE COCHIN: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "It's extraordinary and totally relaxing," they say. "And what a view."
COCHIN: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "Those of us who can't get away on vacation," says Cochin, "the Seine is saving our summer."
Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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