Europe’s heatwaves are becoming more likely as the continent warms
Scientists say Europe’s recent extreme heat reflects a warmer baseline, with health risks rising unless emissions and infrastructure gaps are addressed.
By Lucas Ferreira · Science & Environment Writer
3 min read
Europe’s early-summer heat has brought 40C temperatures, transport disruption and deaths across several countries, according to Al Jazeera. Scientists cited by the outlet say the episode reflects a warming climate that is making severe heat far more common and harder for European infrastructure and public health systems to handle.
Al Jazeera reported that Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland reached 40C on Sunday, while France recorded days averaging 29.8C and one town reached 44C before storms arrived. The report said France was left with an estimated 1,000 excess deaths.
World Weather Attribution said comparable European heat is now tens to hundreds of times more likely than it was in 2003 and was not seen 50 years ago. The group also said last summer’s heatwave caused an estimated 2,300 climate-related deaths across 12 European countries.
A warmer starting point
WWA found that heatwaves like the current one were generally about 3.5C cooler in June 1976 and about 2C cooler in 2003. Dr Akshay Deoras of the University of Reading told Al Jazeera that global warming has shifted the baseline, making rare heat extremes more likely.
Copernicus, the European Commission’s climate service, says Europe has warmed at about twice the global average since the 1980s. WWA’s modelling says that at current emissions levels, an event like this summer’s heatwave can be expected every couple of decades, and that today’s extremes may resemble an ordinary European summer by mid-century.
Al Jazeera reported that the immediate weather driver is a stalled high-pressure system, often called a heat dome, which holds heat over one area for days or weeks. Deoras told the outlet that such patterns are not new, but a warmer baseline now produces hotter outcomes than in past decades.
Past emissions, current impacts
Professor Hannah Cloke of the University of Reading told Al Jazeera that Europe is now feeling the delayed effects of pollution released in earlier decades because the climate system responds over time. Copernicus’s European State of the Climate 2025 report said more than 95 percent of the continent had above-average annual temperatures last year, along with record Alpine glacier loss and record European sea-surface temperatures.
Cloke told Al Jazeera that some damage is already locked in. She said Alpine glaciers that supply major European rivers have shrunk beyond recovery, reducing their role in summer river flows on a permanent basis.
Cloke also said choices made now still affect future risk. She told Al Jazeera that avoiding emissions changes the odds of what comes next, while some resources, including groundwater in northern Europe, can still recover if action comes soon enough.
Health systems face recurring heat
The Lancet Countdown Europe calculated that heat caused 62,000 deaths across the region in 2024, according to Al Jazeera. The project’s projections show a sharp further increase by 2050 without changes.
Dr Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Europe, told Al Jazeera that heat-related deaths have risen by an average of 52 per million people annually since the 1990s. He said many homes in the region were built for colder conditions, with designs that retain heat rather than release it.
Kluge said governments should treat heat as a recurring public health risk and identify vulnerable people, including older residents living alone, before heatwaves arrive. Cloke pointed to better warning systems and water infrastructure suited to changed rainfall patterns, while Deoras said cutting emissions would make heatwaves less intense, less frequent and shorter.
This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.