AFP UK

Eight major wildfires are raging across France

Officials warned Thursday that flare-ups could cause a massive wildfire to further spread in France’s parched southwest, site of the most intense blazes that have blackened swaths of the country this week.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne was to meet with authorities battling the Landiras fire south of Bordeaux, and further reinforcements are expected for the 1,100 firefighters on site, the prefecture of the Gironde department said.

France has been buffeted this summer by the historic drought that has forced water-use restrictions nationwide, as well as a series of heatwaves that experts say are being driven by climate change.

“Conditions are particularly difficult: the vegetation and soil are exceptionally dry,” the prefecture said in a statement, warning that extreme dry heat is likely until at least Sunday.

“There is a very serious risk of new outbreaks.”

Temperatures in the region could top 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) on Thursday, weather forecasters predicted.

The Landiras blaze erupted in July — the driest month seen in France since 1961 — destroying 14,000 hectares and forcing thousands of people to evacuate before it was contained.

But it continued to smoulder in the tinder-dry pine forests and peat-rich soil, and officials suspect arson may have played a role in the latest flare-up, which has burned 6,800 hectares (17,000 acres) since Tuesday.  

Currently eight major wildfires are raging in France and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who was also heading to meet Gironde officials Thursday, said Sweden and Italy were sending fire-fighting aircraft to help.

President Emmanuel Macron added on Twitter that Germany, Greece, Poland, Romania and Austria are also providing help.

“Across the country over 10,000 firefighters and security forces are mobilised against the flames… These soldiers of fire are our heroes,” he said.

– ‘Battled all night’ –

“You’d think we’re in California, it’s gigantic… And they’re used to forest fires here but we’re being overwhelmed on all sides — nobody could have expected this,” Remy Lahay, a firefighter deployed near Hostens in the Landes de Gascogne natural park, told AFP. 

On several nearby houses, people hung out white sheets saying “Thank you for saving our homes” and other messages of support for the weary fire battalions.

“We battled all night to stop the fire from spreading, notably to defend the village of Belin-Beliet,” Lieutenant Colonel Arnaud Mendousse of the Gironde fire and rescue service told journalists in Hostens.

Seventeen homes have been destroyed or damaged since Tuesday, and nearly 10,000 people evacuated, but no further orders to leave the area are expected “for the time being”, Mendousse said.

Acrid smoke has spread across much of the southwestern Atlantic coast and its beaches that draw huge crowds of tourists each summer, with the regional ARS health agency “strongly” urging people to wear protective face masks.

The smoke also forced the closing of the A63 motorway, a major artery toward Spain, between Bordeaux and Bayonne.

Debates on the role of serotonin only illustrate how difficult it is to understand the biological and social workings of an illness as complex as depression

A controversy in the scientific community over recent claims anti-depressants can be ineffective at treating depression has highlighted the difficulties in understanding mental health conditions.

One of the prevailing theories currently focuses on serotonin. Depression has been linked to a lack of the molecule, which is involved in transmitting emotions to the brain. 

Claims that depression has no link to a chemical imbalance in the brain related to serotonin, casting doubt on the need for anti-depressants, have sparked fierce reaction.

A study by psychiatrists Joanna Moncrieff and Mark Horowitz in the journal Molecular Psychiatry in July concluded that there was no proven link between a lack of serotonin and depression.

The authors said it queried the underlying assumption behind the use of anti-depressants, which are mostly developed to alter serotonin levels, undoing a theory that for decades acted as a framework for research.

The study is based on several previous publications, but it quickly attracted criticism — particularly its presentation by Moncrieff, known for her scepticism towards biological explanations of depression and her radical stance against the pharmaceutical industry.

“I’m broadly in agreement with the authors’ conclusions about our current efforts, though I lack their adamantine certainty,” psychiatrist Phil Cowen said on the Science Media Centre website.

“No mental health professional” would endorse the view that a complex condition like depression “stems from a deficiency in a single neurotransmitter”, Cowen added.

– ‘Mainstream’ psychiatry –

Some peers have questioned the methodology, which measured an indirect trace of serotonin rather than taking direct measurements of the molecule.

Moncrieff, who wants to break with what she calls “mainstream” psychiatry, believes the serotonin theory still occupies an important, albeit less prominent, place in the profession.

“Even if leading psychiatrists were beginning to doubt the evidence for depression being related to low serotonin, no one told the public,” the British psychiatrist wrote on her blog.

The connection between depression and serotonin is firmly rooted in the popular imagination. French author Michel Houellebecq gave the title “Serotonin” to his 2019 novel in which the main character is depressed.

Moncrieff’s undermining of the serotonin theory to argue against current anti-depressants, going beyond the conclusions of her own study, has sparked the most vehement criticism.

Swiss psychiatrist Michel Hofmann told AFP her study was “serious” and contributed to expert debates about depression.

“But I don’t think it is an article that should have any impact in the short term on the prescription of anti-depressants,” he said.

Moncrieff has warned that anti-depressant treatment should not be suddenly interrupted. But for her, the benefits of a course of anti-depressants are doubtful if it is based on a discredited theory.

But many stress that the effectiveness of the treatments has been scientifically assessed, irrespective of the primary cause of depression.

The medicines used to treat depression “are usually many and ultimately, in most cases, we don’t know what exactly makes a treatment effective”, Hofmann added.

Debates on the role of serotonin only illustrate how difficult it is to understand the biological and social workings of an illness as complex as depression.

The challenges are forcing researchers to move away from  models that are incomplete by their very nature.

“We are still at theories and we continue to search and test models against each other,” Hofmann said.

The prospect of severe, longer-term limits to traffic spells a new headache for the industries lined up on the banks of the Rhine

A hot, dry July made worse by climate change has raised the risk that the German economy could run aground as sinking Rhine waters make shipping along the river harder.

The prospect of severe, longer-term limits to traffic spells a new headache for the industries lined up on the river’s banks and threatens to further strain Germany’s efforts to wean itself off Russian energy imports as coal counts among key cargo moved on the waterway.

Roberto Spranzi, boss of DTG, a shipping cooperative, says the volumes that his fleet can carry are already limited by the unusually low water levels.

“At the moment we have a capacity where, we have to use three or four vessels where we would normally need one,” Spranzi tells AFP. 

Pointing at the worrying ebb at the entrance to the inland port of Duisburg in western Germany, Spranzi notes that “currently it’s at 1.70 metres (5.6 feet) In theory, the normal water level is over two metres”.

Further up the river in Kaub, a noted bottleneck for shipping where the Rhine runs narrow and shallow, the reference level is forecast to go below 40 centimetres by the end of the week and squeeze traffic further.

“We supply factories on the Rhine with their raw materials. When that’s not possible any more — or less often — that’s a threat to German industry, too,” Spranzi says.

– Coal power – 

Around four percent of freight in Germany is carried via its waterways, including the Rhine, which winds its way from Switzerland, along the border with France, through Germany’s industrial heartland and the Netherlands to the sea.

As Berlin turns to mothballed coal power capacity to plug the gap after Russia curtailed its energy deliveries, the Rhine has taken on added significance as a key artery for coal transport.

But the sinking water level has already led energy providers to warn they may have to limit output.

Uniper has said the low level of the Rhine may lead to the “irregular operation” of two of its coal plants into September.

EnBW, which runs sites in the southwestern region of Baden-Wurttermberg, has warned that deliveries of the fuel could be restricted.

The dwindling waters have seen “transport costs per tonne rise”, EnBW said in a statement, adding that it had preemptively built stocks of coal earlier in the year.

Alternative routes were available — either by road or rail — but capacity was “tight”, EnBW said.

The Rhine freight restrictions have added to the supply chain disruption seen by industry and increased the risk of scarcity. 

Across southern Germany, a shortage of fuel at the pump has been traced back to the dry weather, among other factors.

“Low water levels on the Rhine mean that in this area very important transportation of oil products, such as petrol, diesel or heating oil can’t operate as normal,” says Alexander von Gersdorff, spokesman for the German energy and fuel industry lobby.

– ‘Much earlier’ – 

A 2018 drought, which saw the Rhine’s reference depth at Kaub fall as low as 25 centimetres in October, shaved 0.2 percent off German GDP that year, according to Deutsche Bank Research.

“The low levels have come much earlier this time,” Deutsche Bank Research economist Marc Schattenberg tells AFP.

“If the problems we are now observing last longer (than in 2018), the loss of economic value becomes all the more serious.” 

Industrial heavyweights stationed along the Rhine rely on the waterway to ferry goods to and from their sites.

Duisburg-based conglomerate ThyssenKrupp said in a statement it had “taken measures” to assure its supplies of raw materials.

The chemical giant BASF, whose Ludwigshafen base sits south of the Kaub choke-point, said its production had not yet been limited by the low water levels, but warned that it could not rule out “reductions for specific units in the coming weeks”.

A combine harvests cotton in a field at Pamplona farm in Cristalina, Brazil on July 14, 2022

The road through Cristalina, Brazil is in the middle of the tropics, but the fields on either side look like they are covered in snow — little white puffs of cotton stretching to the horizon.

The alabaster plants interspersed with the corn and soybean fields outside the central-western town are part of a silent revolution in Brazil: facing negative attention over the agribusiness industry’s environmental impact, farmers are increasingly turning to cotton and adopting sustainable techniques to produce it.

After increasing exports 15-fold in the past two decades, Brazil is now the world’s second-biggest cotton supplier, after the United States — and the biggest producer of sustainable cotton.

No less than 84 percent of the cotton grown in the South American agricultural giant is certified by the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), an international non-profit group to promote sustainable cotton farming.

“Consumers have changed. People don’t want to buy products any more that don’t respect nature and its cycles,” says entomologist Cristina Schetino of the University of Brasilia, who specializes in cotton farming.

The industry is trying to improve the international image of Brazilian farming, tarnished by a history of slave labor, heavy pesticide use and the destruction of the Amazon rainforest for agriculture, a trend that has accelerated under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro — an agribusiness ally.

In 2005, the Brazilian Cotton Producers’ Association (Abrapa) launched a sustainability training program for farmers and introduced protocols on efficiently using water and pesticides and phasing out toxic products in favor of biological fertilizers.

A new tracing program launched with Brazilian clothing brands, meanwhile, lets consumers check how cotton goods were produced.

Last season, cotton farmers in Brazil replaced 34 percent of chemical pesticides with biological ones, Abrapa says.

They have also started using drones to apply pesticides more efficiently.

Switching to sustainable techniques is “a re-education process,” says Abrapa’s executive director, Marcio Portocarreiro.

“At first, farmers tend to think mainly about the impact on their bottom line. But when they get past that phase… they realize that farming sustainably gives them a guaranteed market,” he told AFP.

– Added value –

Located outside Cristalina, around 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of Brasilia, the capital, Fazenda Pamplona is one of Brazil’s biggest proponents of sustainable cotton.

The 27,000-hectare (67,000-acre) operation, run by agribusiness giant SLC Agricola, is like a small city in the middle of the countryside, with a banquet hall, a children’s park, sports fields and housing for employees.

The farm aims to retain workers by creating a home where they will want to stay, says production coordinator Diego Goldschmidt.

He stands in front of two enormous bales of cotton, labeled with QR codes that detail their harvest.

“These are already sold,” he beams.

The farm produced more than 600,000 tonnes last year, 99 percent of it for export.

Sustainable cotton sells for prices up to 10 percent higher than conventional cotton.

“Besides being the right thing to do for society and the environment, it provides added value,” says Goldschmidt.

– Aiming high –

But cotton remains one of the most pesticide-intensive crops, using more than double that of soy per hectare.

The problem is the prevalence of pests such as boll weevils and the absence of organic products to stop them, says Schetino.

“There’s still a lot of dependence on chemical products, which have a negative environmental impact,” says the entomologist, who is researching alternatives.

Brazil cultivates around 1.6 million hectares of cotton a year. It is a key supplier for the global garment industry, exporting to the likes of China, Vietnam, Pakistan and Turkey.

Abrapa has set itself the ambitious goal of surpassing the US to become the world’s biggest cotton supplier in 2030.

“Brazil may not have a good image on sustainable farming yet,” says Goldschmidt.

“But we will soon. There’s a lot of potential.”

China is the world's biggest producer of solar technology

Generating power from sunlight bouncing off the ground, working at night, even helping to grow strawberries: solar panel technology is evolving fast as costs plummet for a key segment of the world’s energy transition.

The International Energy Agency says solar will have to scale up significantly this decade to meet the Paris climate target of limiting temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The good news is that costs have fallen dramatically. 

In a report on solutions earlier this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said solar unit costs had dropped 85 percent between 2010 and 2019, while wind fell 55 percent. 

“There’s some claim that it’s the cheapest way humans have ever been able to make electricity at scale,” said Gregory Nemet, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a lead author on that report.

Experts hope the high fossil fuel prices and fears over energy security caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will accelerate the uptake of renewables. 

Momentum gathered pace on Sunday with the ambitious US climate bill, which earmarks $370 billion in efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030.

An analysis by experts at Princeton University estimates the bill could see five times the rate of solar additions in 2025 as there were in 2020.

Nemet said solar alone could plausibly make up half of the world’s electricity system by mid-century, although he cautioned against looking for “silver bullets”. 

“I think there really is big potential,” he told AFP.

– Rapid changes –

The “photovoltaic effect” — the process by which solar cells convert sunlight to electrical energy — was first discovered in 1839 by the French physicist Edmond Becquerel.

After decades of innovations, silicon-based solar cells started to be developed in the United States in the 1950s, with the world’s first solar-powered satellite launched in 1958.

The IPCC said of all energy technologies, small-scale ones like solar and batteries have so far proved quicker to improve and be adopted than bulkier options like nuclear.

Today, almost all of the panels glimmering on rooftops and spreading across vast fields are made in China using silicon semiconductors. 

But the technology is changing quickly. 

In a recent report, the IEA said these new solar cells have proven to be one-fifth more efficient in converting light to energy than standard modules installed just four or five years ago.

There are also a host of new materials and hybrid cells that experts predict could supercharge efficiency.

These include cheap, efficient and lightweight “thin film” technologies, like those using perovskites that can be printed from inks. 

Experts say they raise the prospect of dramatically expanding where solar energy can be harvested — if they can be made durable enough to withstand a couple of decades of use. 

Recent research has raised hopes that it could be possible.

In one study, published in the journal Science in April, scientists added metal-containing materials to perovskite cells, making them more stable with efficiency near traditional silicon models.

Other research mixes materials for different purposes.

One study in Nature used “tandem” models, with perovskite semiconductors to absorb near-infrared light on the solar spectrum, while an organic carbon-based material absorbed ultraviolet and visible parts of the light.

And what happens after sunset? 

Researchers from Stanford said this year they had produced a solar cell that could harvest energy overnight, using heat leaking from Earth back into space.

“I think that there’s a lot of creativity in this industry,” said Ron Schoff, who heads the Electric Power Research Institute’s Renewable Energy and Fleet Enabling Technologies research.

– Location, location –

Generating more energy from each panel will become increasingly crucial as solar power is rolled out at greater scale, raising concerns about land use and harm to ecosystems.

Schoff said one efficiency-boosting design that is becoming more popular for large-scale projects is “bifacial” solar. 

These double-sided units absorb energy not just directly from the sun’s rays, but also from light reflected off the ground beneath. 

Other solutions involve using the same space for multiple purposes — like semi-transparent solar panels used as a protective roof for strawberry plants or other crops.

India pioneered the use of solar panels over canals a decade ago, reducing evaporation as they generate power.

Scientists in California have said that if the drought-prone US state shaded its canals, it could save around 63 billion gallons.

Construction on a pilot project is due to begin this year.

– All shapes, sizes –

Experts say solar will be among a mix of energy options, with different technologies more suitable for different places.

Schoff said ultimately those energy grids with more than 25 percent solar and wind need ways to store energy — with batteries or large-scale facilities using things like pumped water or compressed air.

Consumers can also play their part, said Nemet, by shifting more of their energy use to daytime periods, or even hosting their own solar networks in an Airbnb-style approach.

He said the modular nature of solar means it can be rolled out in developing countries with sparse access to traditional grids.

“You could have solar on something as small as a watch and something as big as the biggest power plants in the world,” he said.

“I think that’s what’s making people excited about it.”

The A-68 iceberg was one of the largest ever observed

The world’s biggest ice sheet could cause “several metres” of sea-level rise over centuries if the global temperature rises more than 2°C, according to a British study published Wednesday.

Researchers at Durham University concluded that if global greenhouse emissions remain high, the melting East Antarctica Ice Sheet (EAIS) could cause nearly half a metre of sea-level rise by 2100. Their analysis was published in the scientific journal Nature.

If emissions remain high beyond that, the EAIS could contribute around one to three metres to global sea levels by 2300, and two to five metres by 2500, they said.

However, if emissions were dramatically reduced, EAIS could contribute around two centimetres of sea level rise by 2100, according to the assessment. 

This would represent far less than the ice loss expected from Greenland and West Antarctica. 

“A key conclusion from our analysis is that the fate of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet remains very much in our hands,” said lead author Chris Stokes, from Durham University’s Department of Geography.

“This ice sheet is by far the largest on the planet, containing the equivalent of 52 metres of sea level and it’s really important that we do not awaken this sleeping giant.

“Restricting global temperature increases to below the 2°C limit set by the Paris Climate Agreement should mean that we avoid the worst-case scenarios, or perhaps even halt the melting of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, and therefore limit its impact on global sea level rise,” he added.

– Computer simulations –

The study did note that the worst scenarios projected were “very unlikely”.

World leaders agreed at the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris to limit global warming to well below 2°C and pursue efforts to limit the rise to 1.5°C.

The research team, which included scientists from the UK, Australia, France and the US, analysed how the ice sheet responded to past warm periods when making their predictions.

They ran computer simulations to model the effects of different greenhouse gas emission levels and temperatures on the ice sheet by the years 2100, 2300 and 2500.

They found evidence to suggest that three million years ago, when temperatures were around 2-4°C higher than present, part of the EAIS “collapsed and contributed several metres to sea-level rise”.

“Even as recently as 400,000 years ago — not that long ago on geological timescales — there is evidence that a part of the EAIS retreated 700 km inland in response to only 1-2°C of global warming,” they added.

Nerilie Abram, a co-author of the study from the Australian National University in Canberra, warned the sheet “isn’t as stable and protected as we once thought.”

Thousands of hectares of pine forest have been destoyed in the Landiras blaze since Tuesday

A wildfire that officials thought was under control in southwest France has reignited amid a record drought and extreme heat, possibly the result of arson, officials said Wednesday.

More than 6,200 hectares (around 15,000 acres) of tinder-dry forest have burned in just 24 hours in the so-called Landiras blaze, the largest of several that scorched the region last month, prompting the evacuation of 10,000 people since Tuesday evening.

It had been brought under control — but not fully extinguished — after burning nearly 14,000 hectares, before flaring up on Tuesday.

The government said Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin would travel to the frontline of fire-fighting efforts in the southwestern French region of Gironde on Thursday.

Following the reignition of the fires, Darmanin announced more resources including more than 1,000 firefighters, nine planes and two helicopters equipped to drop water.

No one has been injured but 16 homes were destroyed or damaged near the village of Belin-Beliet, and officials said six fire engines had been burned.

“The risks are very high” that parched conditions will allow the fire to spread further, said Martin Guespereau, prefect of the Gironde department.

“The weather is very unfavourable because of the heat, the dry air, the record drought and the fact that there is a lot of peat in the ground… the fire didn’t go out in July, it went underground,” he told journalists.

Darmanin said investigators suspected arson may be involved.

“There were eight fires that erupted between 8:00 and 9:00 am (0600 and 0700 GMT) that erupted at intervals of a few hundred metres, which is extremely unusual,” he said in Mostuejouls, north of the Mediterranean city of Montpellier, where another fire was raging in the Grands Causses natural park.

He also told reporters that Sweden and Italy would send fire-fighting aircraft to France within 24 hours to help.

– ‘The sky was roaring’ –

“It’s a major fire… much more intense and fast-moving” than at the height of the Landiras blaze last month, Marc Vermeulen of the regional fire-fighting authority told journalists.

“I opened the door last night and there was (a) red wall in front of us, the sky was roaring like the ocean,” said Eliane, a 43-year-old at a temporary shelter for evacuees in Belin-Beliet.

For Christian Fostitchenko, 61, and his partner Monique, waiting at a martial arts dojo in nearby Salles, it was their second evacuation of the summer from their home in Saint-Magne.

“This time we were really scared — the flames were less than 100 metres (328 feet) from the house,” he said.

The fire was spreading toward the A63 motorway, a major artery linking Bordeaux to Spain, with thick smoke forcing the road’s closure between Bordeaux and Bayonne.

France has been buffeted this summer by a record drought that has forced water-use restrictions nationwide, as well as a series of heatwaves that many experts warn are being driven by climate change.

Wildfires have also ignited in the dry hills of the southeast and even in the normally lush areas of Brittany along the coast.

On Wednesday, officials in western France said a wildfire near Angers and Le Mans has burned 1,200 hectares since Monday as nearly 400 firefighters struggle to contain it.

Brazilian Minister of Economy Paulo Guedes — seen here in June 2022 — has reopened old wounds with France over Amazonian forest fires by using some decidedly undiplomatic language in a recent speech

In decidedly undiplomatic language, Brazil’s economy minister has renewed a spat with France over deforestation in the Amazon, telling the European nation it is becoming “irrelevant” and risks being told where to stick its criticism.

Following in the footsteps of his boss, far-right President Jair Bolsonaro — who mocked French First Lady Brigitte Macron’s appearance amid a row with her husband, Emmanuel, over Amazon forest fires in 2019 — Economy Minister Paulo Guedes took the gloves off in comments to a business conference Tuesday.

“We had a minister visiting from France one time. ‘You’re burning the forest,’ he said. I told him, ‘You’re burning Notre Dame,'” the iconic cathedral that caught fire in April 2019, Guedes said in a speech to the Brazilian Association of Bars and Restaurants in Brasilia.

“I mean, what an idiotic accusation. Notre Dame sits on one city block, and you couldn’t stop it from catching fire. We have an area bigger than Europe and you’re criticizing us,” he said, in video recordings of the event that went viral online.

“You better start treating us right or we’re going to tell you to go fuck yourselves.”

Guedes, an ultra-liberal economist who trained at the University of Chicago, said Brazilian trade with France had been dwarfed by that with China — $7 billion versus $120 billion.

“You’re becoming irrelevant to us,” he said, insisting it was time for France to sign off on a proposed free-trade deal between the European Union and South American bloc Mercosur.

The deal has stalled over European concerns that agricultural production in Brazil, the world’s top exporter of beef and soy, is destroying the world’s biggest rainforest.

Since agribusiness ally Bolsonaro took office in January 2019, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by 75 percent from the previous decade.

Bolsonaro, who is up for reelection in October, exchanged heated words over the issue with Macron on social media amid a surge of Amazon forest fires in 2019.

It escalated into Bolsonaro sharing a supporter’s Facebook post of side-by-side pictures of the two presidents’ wives, with the caption: “Now you understand why Macron is persecuting Bolsonaro?”

Guedes jumped into that fray, too, calling Brigitte Macron “truly ugly.”

Thousands of hectares of pine forest have been destoyed in the Landiras blaze since Tuesday

A wildfire that officials thought was under control in southwest France has reignited amid a record drought and extreme heat, possibly the result of arson, officials said Wednesday.

More than 6,000 hectares (15,000 acres) of tinder-dry forest have burned in just 24 hours in the so-called Landiras blaze, the largest of several that scorched the region last month.

It had been brought under control — but not fully extinguished — after burning nearly 14,000 hectares, before flaring up on Tuesday, forcing the evacuation of some 6,000 people.

The government said Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin would travel to the frontline of fire-fighting efforts in the southwestern French region of Gironde on Thursday.

No one has been injured but 16 homes were destroyed or damaged near the village of Belin-Beliet, and officials said six fire engines had been burned.

“The risks are very high” that parched conditions will allow the fire to spread further, said Martin Guespereau, prefect of the Gironde department.

“The weather is very unfavourable because of the heat, the dry air, the record drought and the fact that there is a lot of peat in the ground… the fire didn’t go out in July, it went underground,” he told journalists.

Darmanin said more than 1,000 firefighters were now battling the blaze, adding that investigators suspected arson may be involved.

“There were eight fires that erupted between 8:00 and 9:00 am (0600 and 0700 GMT) that erupted at intervals of a few hundred metres, which is extremely unusual,” he said in Mostuejouls, north of the Mediterranean city of Montpellier, where another fire was raging in the Grands Causses natural park.

He also told reporters that Sweden and Italy would send fire-fighting aircraft to France within 24 hours to help.

– ‘The sky was roaring’ –

“It’s a major fire… much more intense and fast-moving” than at the height of the Landiras blaze last month, Marc Vermeulen of the regional fire-fighting authority told journalists.

“I opened the door last night and there was (a) red wall in front of us, the sky was roaring like the ocean,” said Eliane, a 43-year-old at a temporary shelter for evacuees in Belin-Beliet.

For Christian Fostitchenko, 61, and his partner Monique, waiting at a martial arts dojo in nearby Salles, it was their second evacuation of the summer from their home in Saint-Magne.

“This time we were really scared — the flames were less than 100 metres (328 feet) from the house,” he said.

The fire was spreading toward the A63 motorway, a major artery linking Bordeaux to Spain, with thick smoke forcing the road’s closure between Bordeaux and Bayonne.

France has been buffeted this summer by a record drought that has forced water-use restrictions nationwide, as well as a series of heatwaves that many experts warn are being driven by climate change.

Wildfires have also ignited in the dry hills of the southeast and even in the normally lush areas of Brittany along the coast.

On Wednesday, officials in western France said a wildfire near Angers and Le Mans has burned 1,200 hectares since Monday as nearly 400 firefighters struggle to contain it.

The A-68 iceberg was one of the largest ever observed

The world’s biggest ice sheet could cause “several metres” of sea-level rise over centuries if the global temperature rises more than 2°C, according to a British study published Wednesday.

Researchers at Durham University concluded that if global greenhouse emissions remain high, the melting East Antarctica Ice Sheet (EAIS) could cause nearly half a metre of sea-level rise by 2100. Their analysis was published in the scientific journal Nature.

If emissions remain high beyond that, the EAIS could contribute around one to three metres to global sea levels by 2300, and two to five metres by 2500, they said.

However, if emissions were dramatically reduced, EAIS could contribute around two centimetres of sea level rise by 2100, according to the assessment. 

This would represent far less than the ice loss expected from Greenland and West Antarctica. 

“A key conclusion from our analysis is that the fate of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet remains very much in our hands,” said lead author Chris Stokes, from Durham University’s Department of Geography.

“This ice sheet is by far the largest on the planet, containing the equivalent of 52 metres of sea level and it’s really important that we do not awaken this sleeping giant.

“Restricting global temperature increases to below the 2°C limit set by the Paris Climate Agreement should mean that we avoid the worst-case scenarios, or perhaps even halt the melting of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, and therefore limit its impact on global sea level rise,” he added.

– Computer simulations –

The study did note that the worst scenarios projected were “very unlikely”.

World leaders agreed at the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris to limit global warming to well below 2°C and pursue efforts to limit the rise to 1.5°C.

The research team, which included scientists from the UK, Australia, France and the US, analysed how the ice sheet responded to past warm periods when making their predictions.

They ran computer simulations to model the effects of different greenhouse gas emission levels and temperatures on the ice sheet by the years 2100, 2300 and 2500.

They found evidence to suggest that three million years ago, when temperatures were around 2-4°C higher than present, part of the EAIS “collapsed and contributed several metres to sea-level rise”.

“Even as recently as 400,000 years ago — not that long ago on geological timescales — there is evidence that a part of the EAIS retreated 700 km inland in response to only 1-2°C of global warming,” they added.

Nerilie Abram, a co-author of the study from the Australian National University in Canberra, warned the sheet “isn’t as stable and protected as we once thought.”