Europe’s heatwave is the worst ever (so far), and it could not have been possible without climate change

A new scientific analysis by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) shows that the heatwave that’s currently battering Europe is the most severe and widespread ever recorded, and that it wouldn’t have been possible without man-made climate change.

The current heatwave follows an extraordinary warm spring in Europe. And now, in early summer, temperatures are reaching 5–12 °C above seasonal averages across European countries like France, England, Germany, Spain, and Italy. The analysis notes that this is “particularly remarkable” as June is historically not the hottest month in Western Europe.

Intense heat is increasing rapidly in Europe, and heatwave events like the current one are now—due to the climate crisis—tens to hundreds of times more likely since only 2003. And they were virtually impossible just 50 years ago. According to the analysis, a similar heatwave in June would have been about 3.5 °C cooler during the day in 1976 and about 2 °C cooler in 2003. The nighttime temperatures would have been about 2.4 °C cooler in June 1976 and about 1.3 °C cooler in June 2003.

The analysis warns that without urgent climate action, future heatwaves will get even more extreme and the current sweltering summer temperatures will seem comparatively cool.

This is the most severe and widespread heatwave to have ever affected this large a region of Europe. We found that in the last 50 years, during which time the planet has warmed by 1.1C, the chance of a heatwave like this has changed immensely. This event would not have been possible in June without climate change. But do we expect this to be a cool summer going forward? That’s absolutely the case.

— Theodore Keeping, an extreme weather research associate at Imperial College London and part of the WWA team.

These extreme heatwaves pose a serious threat to human health, and they now cause more deaths in Europe than all other natural hazards combined, according to the analysis by the WWA.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates the current heatwave has caused more than 1 300 additional deaths across Europe. And France has said that since June 24, around 1000 more deaths than expected occurred. Both the WHO and French officials have said that the numbers are preliminary and that they are likely to rise in the coming days as the heatwave continues.

Just four years ago, during the summer of 2022, more than 60 000 people across Europe died as a result of extreme heat. And despite that the following summer in 2023 was significantly cooler, more than 47 000 heat-related deaths were recorded in Europe, the WWA analysis notes. A study showed that 2 300 people died of heat-related causes in just 12 European cities during a severe heatwave last year, and that they would not have died if it wasn’t for climate change.

Scientists like me are beginning to sound like a broken record, reacting year after year to heat extremes that climb ever higher. Yes, this is climate change, yes it’s us, yes we have the solutions, no we’re not implementing them fast enough. It’s really now a question of what kind of future we want for ourselves, and whether we’re willing to do what it takes to secure it.

— Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London and a co-founder of WWA.

Today, well over 150 million people across Europe are facing temperatures that are higher than 35 °C. Homes, workplaces, schools, transportation systems, and energy systems in Europe were not built for these extreme temperatures. And this heatwave highlights the urgent need, not just for swift climate action, but also for rapid climate adaptation across European cities.

“This summer shows that at 1.4 °C of global warming, extreme heat is already reaching the limits of our societies’ ability to cope,” the scientists write in their analysis. “A rapid phase-out of fossil fuels is critical if we are to avoid even higher temperatures and their consequences in the future.”