The big heat wave which has just ended will have put our bodies to the test. Even if this new episode did not reach the intensity of those of 2019, with a record at 46 ° C, nor the length of the historic heatwave of 2003, it should rank among the five most severe suffered by the country. And with global warming, we will have to get used to increasingly long and intense peaks, which will upset our daily lives. Until what point?
To give you an idea, we have planned on August 13, 2050 to offer you a story that is certainly fictitious, but that we wrote based on several studies, then submitted for validation to several specialists.
6.30am. The alarm clock rings . Today is the day of departure for the Durand family. In Fontenay-sous-Bois (Val-de-Marne), even in the middle of the holidays, parents Chloé, Antoine and their two daughters Alice and Julia, 5 and 8 years old, have got into the habit of getting up in the cool. Chloe's connected glasses vibrate, she reads aloud the message from the Parisian-Today in France which is displayed on the glasses: “Heat wave alert in 50 departments. For the ninth day in a row, it will be up to 44.1 ° C in your city. "
His daughter Julia shrugs her shoulders: "Yes well, it's hot in the summer, that's normal ..." As Météo France predicted more than thirty years ago, intense heat waves have become frequent and s 'are now spread over a longer period. The small family does not suffer too much in their apartment with new standards. In the walls and the floor, pipes circulate cold water, a technology that has been used in Paris to cool department stores for a very long time. On the roof and along the facade, climbing plants lower the temperature by a few degrees. Air conditioners were banned in 2023 because they reject hot air in the streets.
7 hours. "See you at school, the friends are already there!" Julia warns just before slamming the door, dragging her little sister in her wake. Even when classrooms are closed, schools have become places of gathering and havens of freshness. The Oasis network, which began to flow through the playgrounds to plant grass and trees more than thirty years ago, has grown well. The girls take the “anti-cannula corridor”, a shady route where dark macadam has been replaced by white concrete to bring down the temperature. The device had been tested in 2018 by Lyon.
8 hours. "Is everyone covered in mosquito repellent?" » Antoine worries, picking up his two daughters. Since he recovered from his outbreak of dengue fever last month after a stay in Toulon (Var), the papa hen has been very vigilant. In the past, we did not catch this disease in metropolitan France. But the old tropical disease made its way into France, as the tiger mosquito continued its progression north. In the Paris region, the first traces of the insect date back to 2015.
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9 hours. Quick on the train. "Dad, are we getting some papers for the ride?" »Julia says. Like every year, the Durands go to Vierzon. The traffic jams of August 15 in the overheated car are a thing of the past. To help the French to get away from their car, SNCF undertook major works at the turn of the 2030s and thus increased the capacity of trains. From the platforms, the girls look at the rails without being surprised that they are now white. They are therefore less heat-resistant and therefore less likely to deform. According to a study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, which is starting to date, painted clear, they are up to 7 ° C cooler. “Before, dilation caused delays with each heat wave,” Antoine explains to Alice, nestled on her knees.
9.45 a.m. No diving in the swimming pool as the Durands arrive in the farmhouse they rent out every year. “This year, filling them in is prohibited,” explains the owner, giving them the keys. Compared to 2020, droughts have become more frequent and water restrictions more severe. The interministerial working group on the impacts of climate change was right to be concerned from 2019 about the scarcity of water resources.
Usually, Julia and Alice love to help themselves in the vacation rental's vegetable garden. There, the whole square turned brown. Seeing that they hesitate to water the cherry tomatoes, their mother warns them: "No watering, otherwise the water police will crack down!" This is in fact the municipal police. Usually it just scolds wasteful people, but it can also impose fines. "And no question of using the cistern that collects rainwater in front of the house", insists Chloe. “Because the cistern must only be used in the event of a fire! »Trumpet the two sisters who have learned their lesson in« fire culture ». Since half of the forests have experienced fires, which were confined to the South East and the Landes, children are learning the right actions at school.
Midday. Picnic with your feet in the water at the edge of the Barangeon. It is thanks to these five rivers that the region has become a tourist destination. When Antoine asks for a melon, Alice laughs: “For the thousandth time dad, the melon is at the end of May. We are no longer in 2020! »French farmers have brought forward the harvest periods to limit the risk of heat waves. Launched, Antoine improvises a gastronomic lesson: “Speaking of the good old days, do you remember the Corsican clementines from our childhood? They were more acidic, he writes. The sharply increased amount of sun made these fruits sweet. Alice and Julia no longer listen, they gorge themselves on "sorghum pound cake". The recipe is a family classic, as this cereal from Somalia has largely replaced corn in the fields of the southwest. To grow, it requires almost half (40%) less water.
22 hours. Chianti from Alsace and white wine from Sweden. The neighbors, Olivier Amel and their three boys, bring the bottles for dinner. We got into the habit of eating late when the afternoon is devoted to naps or cool activities. No more beach or paddle boarding at 2 p.m. in the sun. The temperature has dropped to 29 ° C, which is acceptable. Amel throws a “Skol! Sound, the equivalent of "health" in Swedish by serving white Hällåkra Vingård. What a visionary this Hervé Quénol. This CNRS researcher predicted in 2015 that England or Sweden could become wine-growing countries thanks to global warming.
Alice and Chloe have led the little neighbors in their games. "Don't run too much, it's still hot," yells a parent, who gets only laughs. In the small strip, all were born after 2035 and are now used to tropical temperatures.
Methodology. Météo France had its machines milled to allow us to create this map presenting a heatwave episode in 2050. It provided us with the maximum values of thirty metropolitan cities, according to a simulation validated by scientists, based on the experience of hot July 2019, the second largest recorded in France. "We did not want to base ourselves on the heat wave of 2003, because the models show us that in 2050, an episode of this type will remain exceptional in intensity and duration", insists Christine Berne, climatologist at Météo France. In the current state of science, we calculate that in 2050 a heat wave will be 1.2 to 1.5 ° C hotter than the one we know at the moment if we follow the scenario of "leave do ”, established by Le Giec (Intergovernmental Group of Experts on the Climate).