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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
June and July 2026 of this year became the hottest start to summer on record in Western Europe. Scientists partly attribute the anomalous heat to the development of a so-called super El Niño in the Pacific Ocean. The continent, meanwhile, is battling devastating wildfires and bracing for another heat wave. Heat-related anomalies this year in Europe have already claimed more than 25 thousand lives.
The average temperature for June and July was 21,62 degrees Celsius, about 2,79 degrees above normal and higher than the previous heat record set in 2022, according to the Copernicus Earth Observation Programme, as reported by CNN. July also became the hottest month on record for non-polar oceans worldwide: record-high temperatures were observed in the Atlantic Ocean and the western Mediterranean, posing a threat to marine life and coastal communities.
“When the soil dries out, it loses its ability to provide natural cooling, which allows heat to accumulate even faster,” said Samantha Burgess, Chief Scientist for Climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.
The continent has suffered from a series of deadly heat waves, and even higher temperatures are forecast this week — some regions of Europe are already enduring a fifth heat wave of the summer. Europe is the fastest-warming continent in the world, but it is also the least prepared for heat due to aging infrastructure and a lack of air conditioning.
Drought intensified the heat severalfold.
Hot weather and prolonged droughts in June and July amplified each other, creating a so-called heat spiral, scientists noted. The surface soil moisture level in Western Europe in July was significantly lower than in July 2022 of the last summer with extreme drought in the region.
Researchers recorded “exceptional and record deficits” of rainfall and soil moisture in France, Spain, and parts of Germany and the United Kingdom. Such a combination of dry soil and high temperatures creates conditions for rapid spread of wildfires that the continent is currently contending with.
The heat claimed thousands of lives in various European countries.
Earlier, Informator reported that in Germany this year, due to scorching heat, almost 10 thousand people died — the mortality record was issued by the Robert Koch Institute.
We also wrote that Belgium became the leader in Europe for mortality due to anomalous heat, where the record temperature caused about 2 000 additional deaths among the population.
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