Climate change made Europe's June heatwave far hotter, scientists find
A rapid analysis by World Weather Attribution , a group of climate scientists, concluded that human-driven warming was the decisive factor behind Europe’s June heatwave, which they describe as the most severe ever recorded on the continent for that month. Lead author Theodore Keeping of Imperial College London said the event “would not have been possible in June without climate change.”
The researchers estimate the heatwave was roughly 3.5°C hotter than it would have been under 1976 conditions and about 2°C hotter than the deadly 2003 event. Of nearly 850 European cities studied, about 45% broke or were on track to break all-time heat-stress records. Daytime temperatures topped 40°C across France, Italy, Spain and the UK.
Attribution studies of this kind compare today’s climate with model worlds lacking fossil-fuel emissions to quantify how much warming shifted a specific event. The group’s broader point is operational rather than rhetorical: without a faster fossil-fuel phase-out, comparable heatwaves will keep arriving hotter and more often, straining health systems and power grids already stressed this month.