Sawt Falasteen - Exceptional Nordic heatwave stumps tourists seeking shade

Tourism has been on the rise in Nordic countries in recent years, driven in part by the trend of "coolcations" -- where tourists flee the heat of the Mediterranean for milder temperatures in the north.

But this year record-breaking temperatures in July dashed tourists' hopes of escaping the intense heat.

On Monday, the Finnish Meteorological Institute said in a statement that the country had just emerged from 22 days of temperatures over 30C -- the longest such heatwave since records began in 1961.

July was also the third hottest month recorded in Norway since records began in 1901, with temperatures 2.8 degrees Celsius higher that the seasonal average nationwide, according to the Norwegian Meteorological Institute.

A two-week heatwave, between July 12 and 25, was also the hottest ever recorded in the country.

So-called "tropical nights", where the temperature doesn't drop below 20C, have become commonplace in the region.

- Tourists' hot surprise -

The unusually high temperatures have been a shock to tourists seeking to escape the heat elsewhere.

Moussaab El Bacha, a Stockholm resident, told AFP about his parent's surprise when they came over from Morocco to visit.

"They were actually quite surprised by the intensity of the heat here. They had expected a cooler break from the Moroccan summer, but instead, it felt like the heat followed them all the way to Sweden," he said.

"It was a bit surreal for them to experience such high temperatures this far north — they kept saying: 'Are we sure we didn't just land in southern Spain?'"

In Haparanda, in Sweden's far north, temperatures reached 25C or above for 14 consecutive days in July, and in Jokkmokk, the heatwave lasted over 15 days, something not seen in a century, according to the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI).

- An ice rink oasis -

In Rovaniemi, a Finnish town north of the Arctic Circle which bills itself as the hometown of Santa Claus, temperatures reached above 30C last week.

The municipality of Joensuu in southeastern Finland opened an ice rink for people to cool off in, to reduce pressure on the local healthcare services, North Karelia's regional healthcare services chief Mikael Ripatti told AFP.

Ripatti said emergency rooms had become overcrowded as people sought care for heat-related health issues.

"The aim was to provide a place to go if it was too hot at home," Ripatti said.

Other cities opened up similar cooling facilities to the public, with a shop in Helsinki letting people lie down next to its cooling shelves.

- Arctic heating -

The Arctic region is heating far faster than other parts of the planet.

Of the continents overall, Europe has seen the fastest warming per decade since 1990, followed closely by Asia, according to global data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

"The length of the period and the high temperatures throughout the day in all parts of the country were very unusual this time," Ketil Isaksen, a climate researcher with the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, said in a statement.

"This type of heatwave has become more likely with climate change," the researcher added.

Scientists say recurring heatwaves are a marker of global warming and are expected to become more frequent, longer, and more intense.

"There have been heatwaves in the past and there will continue to be heatwaves in the future," Hannele Korhonen, a research professor at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, told AFP.

But as climate change drives up global temperatures we are "exceeding the heatwave threshold more often, and the heatwaves are hotter", she added.

"An in-depth attribution study would be necessary to pinpoint or assess the role of climate change in the prolonged heatwave (that struck) northern Sweden," Sverker Hellstrom, a meteorologist at SMHI, told AFP.

However, he added: "The frequency of such weather events has increased and may continue to rise in the future."

W.Mansour--SF-PST