A woman protects her head from the sun during a heatwave in Athens on July 29, 2021. | Photo by LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP via Getty Images
During a summer of punishing heat, Greek officials and researchers are thinking about naming individual heatwaves to help keep people safe when temperatures soar. It’s part of a bigger push internationally to create a system for naming and ranking heatwaves, similar to the process for major storms.
“Heatwaves cause a lot of deaths; they don’t make noise and they may not be visible but they’re a silent killer,” Kostas Lagouvardos, research director at the National Observatory of Athens, recently told The Observer, a Sunday paper published by Guardian Media Group. “We believe people will be more prepared to face an upcoming weather event when the event has a name.”
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