We used to laugh at the northern hemisphere’s ‘summer’. Not any more

I’ve just returned from summer in Scandinavia, a swathe of the northern hemisphere happily removed (so far) from the hellscape of bushfires and searing temperatures affecting the southern areas of Europe.

It was blissful. Long, sunny daylight hours, clear skies, fresh air, islands, forests, wildflowers, ferries, cobblestone streets, summer houses on the shore, people bicycling everywhere. The daytime temperature hovered between about 19 to 22 degrees.

The warmest sea temperature in Sweden was 18 degrees. In some places it was about 13. It was a bit bracing for swimming by Australian standards but, for the Scandinavians, who spend much of winter in darkness, these long, light days are a time to get outdoors and into, or on, the water as much as possible.

In most of Australia, we have long thought of a perfect summer day as having steady heat in the high 20s to low 30s, warm waters and relentlessly sunny skies. We complain if it’s broken by a couple of days of rain. We sun worshippers love scorching hot as long as we’re close enough to the sea for a breeze. The world’s highest rate of melanoma is proof enough.

We have been pretty snobby about the “summer” weather in places like England and Scotland. When the recent Test cricket was abandoned due to rain, we joked about it. Weather, which is short term, is quite different to climate, which is the weather conditions of a specific region over a long period of time.

According to leading climate scientist Professor Michael E Mann, we’ve moved on from climate change denial to a period where the deniers delay, distract, deflect and spread disinformation. After all, it’s getting harder for the deniers to deny: we can see it for ourselves.

While I was in Sweden and Finland, the world had its hottest day in recorded history. That record was broken the very next day. The UK had its highest ever recorded temperature, 40.2 degrees. Catalonia, Sardinia, Rome and Palermo were among many southern Italian cities that suffered through the highest temperatures on record, topping 46 degrees in many places.

We watched as 1200 children were evacuated from an inferno near a summer camp close to Athens and 38,000 people were evacuated from wildfires in France’s Gironde region and 19,000 people had to be saved on the Greek island of Rhodes.