{"id":2114539,"date":"2026-08-26T16:44:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T13:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2114539"},"modified":"2026-08-26T16:44:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T13:44:22","slug":"why-europes-extreme-summers-are-getting-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2114539","title":{"rendered":"Why Europe’s extreme summers are getting worse"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/static.dw.com\/image\/78284700_6.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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https:\/\/p.dw.com\/p\/5JQzi<\/span><\/div>\n<\/section>\n
As temperatures climbed past 40 degrees Celsius across southern Europe this summer, scientists say such extreme heat is increasing due to human-caused climate changeImage: Tiziana Fabi\/AFP<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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As a summer of European extreme heat<\/a> draws to a close, politicians are looking back at the toll. Germany\u00a0recorded<\/a>around 14,000 heat-related deaths, almost two-thirds in one scorching week of June alone. A Dutch bank estimated<\/a> summer heat will cost the EU \u20ac180 billion ($209 billion) in lost GDP. And in June, European farmers lost<\/a>\u00a0approximately 9 million tons in grain crops.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Climate change, long a politically charged topic, has become a daily reality for people around the world. These effects and more are making it increasingly difficult to challenge what people are seeing with their own eyes.<\/p>\n

Yet that hasn’t stopped the global populist right<\/a>\u00a0from trying. Richard Tice, deputy leader\u00a0of the UK’s far-right\u00a0Reform Party said<\/a>\u00a0“climate change has always happened, it always will,”\u00a0adding that it was arrogant to try to stop it. He encouraged the British public to enjoy the heat.<\/p>\n

In the United States, Harriet Hageman, a Republican politician and potentially\u00a0Wyoming’s next senator, told<\/a> far-right channel Real America’s Voice that Europe\u2019s heatwave was business as usual. “It’s called summer. Some years are hotter than others and some years are colder than others,”\u00a0she said. “But that’s just the cyclical nature of weather.”<\/p>\n

And Tino Chrupalla,\u00a0co-leader of Germany\u2019s far-right AfD<\/a> party told<\/a>\u00a0a journalist in recent days that it’s been a “completely normal summer.”\u00a0He dismissed\u00a0climate change<\/a> as “hype.”\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nBut claims like these don’t stand up to scientific scrutiny.<\/p>\n

\"Thermometer
A pharmacy thermometer in Cologne hit a record-breaking 42.2\u00b0C as last month ranked among the two warmest ever recorded globally.Image: teutopress\/picture alliance<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As NASA\u00a0states<\/a>plainly: “Scientific evidence continues to show that human activities (primarily the human burning of fossil fuels) have warmed Earth’s surface and its ocean basins, which in turn have continued to impact Earth\u2019s climate.”<\/p>\n

This was not ‘a completely normal summer’\u00a0<\/h2>\n

This summer has been historically hot. Independent climate monitoring bodies, including the\u00a0National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a>\u00a0(NOAA) in the US, the Copernicus Climate Change Service<\/a> in the European Union and the Japan Meterological Agency<\/a>, all called last month either the joint-warmest or joint-second warmest month on record.<\/p>\n

The conditions have\u00a0led energy plants to halt\u00a0production, outdated concrete motorways blowing up, and older buildings overheating during the day and barely cooling down at night\u00a0\u2014\u00a0threatening inhabitants with exposure to heat stress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The extreme heat was felt almost everywhere on the globe. According to NOAA’s data, it was the warmest July ever for North America, Africa and Asia.<\/p>\n

The continental United States just surpassed<\/a>its warmest July records. They were previously set in 1936, during the infamous Dust Bowl that scorched the US Great Plains with extreme temperatures, and in 2012, when North America suffered an extreme heatwave.<\/p>\n

And the daily average sea surface temperature hit<\/a>its highest level since records began in 1979 \u2014 reaching 21.1 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit) this month. That’s a result of both human-driven warming as well as El Nino, a climate cycle that weakens trade winds and warms tropical Pacific surface temperatures.<\/p>\n

How climate change supercharged this summer’s fires<\/h2>\n

In Spain, the far-right Vox party said<\/a>fires\u00a0\u2014\u00a0which burned more than 254,000 hectares of land across the country this season\u00a0\u2014\u00a0were not connected to climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet experts agree rising global temperatures\u00a0played a major role in the intense wildfire season<\/a> that also scorched large parts of France and Canada. That’s because extreme heat\u00a0creates ideal conditions for wildfires to start and spread.<\/p>\n

\"Residents
Scientists have established a clear connection between hotter temperatures and the likelihood of wildfires Image: Umit Bektas\/REUTERS<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A field of climate research called attribution science explores the extent to which climate change exacerbates extreme weather events like this summer’s wildfires. Using models, researchers compare the likelihood and intensity of an event in today’s climate with a simulated world in which there is no human-caused warming.<\/p>\n

Analyses done this summer show<\/a>that hotter global temperatures created conditions that made the wildfires in Spain 20 times more likely to happen, and twice as probable in France.<\/p>\n

This is due to a phenomenon known as weather whiplash, where ecosystems swing dramatically between wet and dry conditions.<\/p>\n

When the planet warms, the atmosphere holds more moisture, rainfall is intensified, and plants grow. Then, in summer, that same warm atmosphere draws water from soil and plants, worsening drought and drying out vegetation, turning it into the perfect fuel for fires.<\/p>\n

“We know \u2014 and this is mathematically proven \u2014 that the probability of having fire weather that can sustain and create this kind of event has been altered by climate change,” Francesca Di Giuseppe, a fire forecast project coordinator at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, told DW about this summer’s fires in Spain and France.<\/p>\n

Climate change’s ripple effects<\/h2>\n

Overall, this summer has left its mark in numerous ways that are impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n

Bodies of water across Europe are drying out under the intense heat. Parts of the Rhine, Danube and Po rivers have fallen to historically low levels<\/a>, making it impossible for ships to pass through in some spots.<\/p>\n

\"Cargo
Drought and heat have pushed the Rhine to historic lows, forcing cargo ships to carry lighter loadsImage: Martin Meissner\/AP Photo\/picture alliance<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This has a number of knock-on effects. Drinking water costs could rise dramatically as much of Germany’s clean water first passes through\u00a0reed-filled riverbanks that are crucial for filtration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Supply chains are also be disrupted, as vessels can’t carry as much cargo when water levels are lower, increasing prices across the economy in products like steel or petroleum.<\/p>\n

In America, drought conditions are wreaking havoc<\/a> on crops and livestock. In June, the US Department of Agriculture said the 10-month stretch from August 2025 to May 2026 was the nation’s driest period since 1976-77.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, 59% of the country’s sorghum is being grown in\u00a0areas experiencing drought<\/a>.\u00a0More than half the nation’s cattle production and almost two-thirds of\u00a0spring wheat production is happening under water scarcity.<\/p>\n

Such conditions can put direct strain on the country’s food supply, increase prices and threaten rural livelihoods.<\/p>\n

By any measurement \u2014 thermometers, drought maps, or death tolls \u2014 and in much of the world, this summer has been historically extreme.<\/p>\n

Edited by: Tamsin Walker<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Why Europe’s extreme summers are getting worse<\/h2>\n

\n

As a summer of European extreme heat<\/a> draws to a close, politicians are looking back at the toll. Germany\u00a0recorded<\/a>around 14,000 heat-related deaths, almost two-thirds in one scorching week of June alone. A Dutch bank estimated<\/a> summer heat will cost the EU \u20ac180 billion ($209 billion) in lost GDP. And in June, European farmers lost<\/a>\u00a0approximately 9 million tons in grain crops.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Climate change, long a politically charged topic, has become a daily reality for people around the world. These effects and more are making it increasingly difficult to challenge what people are seeing with their own eyes.<\/p>\n

Yet that hasn’t stopped the global populist right<\/a>\u00a0from trying. Richard Tice, deputy leader\u00a0of the UK’s far-right\u00a0Reform Party said<\/a>\u00a0“climate change has always happened, it always will,”\u00a0adding that it was arrogant to try to stop it. He encouraged the British public to enjoy the heat.<\/p>\n

In the United States, Harriet Hageman, a Republican politician and potentially\u00a0Wyoming’s next senator, told<\/a> far-right channel Real America’s Voice that Europe\u2019s heatwave was business as usual. “It’s called summer. Some years are hotter than others and some years are colder than others,”\u00a0she said. “But that’s just the cyclical nature of weather.”<\/p>\n

And Tino Chrupalla,\u00a0co-leader of Germany\u2019s far-right AfD<\/a> party told<\/a>\u00a0a journalist in recent days that it’s been a “completely normal summer.”\u00a0He dismissed\u00a0climate change<\/a> as “hype.”\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nBut claims like these don’t stand up to scientific scrutiny.<\/p>\n

\"Thermometer
A pharmacy thermometer in Cologne hit a record-breaking 42.2\u00b0C as last month ranked among the two warmest ever recorded globally.Image: teutopress\/picture alliance<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As NASA\u00a0states<\/a>plainly: “Scientific evidence continues to show that human activities (primarily the human burning of fossil fuels) have warmed Earth’s surface and its ocean basins, which in turn have continued to impact Earth\u2019s climate.”<\/p>\n

This was not ‘a completely normal summer’\u00a0<\/h2>\n

This summer has been historically hot. Independent climate monitoring bodies, including the\u00a0National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a>\u00a0(NOAA) in the US, the Copernicus Climate Change Service<\/a> in the European Union and the Japan Meterological Agency<\/a>, all called last month either the joint-warmest or joint-second warmest month on record.<\/p>\n

The conditions have\u00a0led energy plants to halt\u00a0production, outdated concrete motorways blowing up, and older buildings overheating during the day and barely cooling down at night\u00a0\u2014\u00a0threatening inhabitants with exposure to heat stress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The extreme heat was felt almost everywhere on the globe. According to NOAA’s data, it was the warmest July ever for North America, Africa and Asia.<\/p>\n

The continental United States just surpassed<\/a>its warmest July records. They were previously set in 1936, during the infamous Dust Bowl that scorched the US Great Plains with extreme temperatures, and in 2012, when North America suffered an extreme heatwave.<\/p>\n

And the daily average sea surface temperature hit<\/a>its highest level since records began in 1979 \u2014 reaching 21.1 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit) this month. That’s a result of both human-driven warming as well as El Nino, a climate cycle that weakens trade winds and warms tropical Pacific surface temperatures.<\/p>\n

How climate change supercharged this summer’s fires<\/h2>\n

In Spain, the far-right Vox party said<\/a>fires\u00a0\u2014\u00a0which burned more than 254,000 hectares of land across the country this season\u00a0\u2014\u00a0were not connected to climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet experts agree rising global temperatures\u00a0played a major role in the intense wildfire season<\/a> that also scorched large parts of France and Canada. That’s because extreme heat\u00a0creates ideal conditions for wildfires to start and spread.<\/p>\n

\"Residents
Scientists have established a clear connection between hotter temperatures and the likelihood of wildfires Image: Umit Bektas\/REUTERS<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A field of climate research called attribution science explores the extent to which climate change exacerbates extreme weather events like this summer’s wildfires. Using models, researchers compare the likelihood and intensity of an event in today’s climate with a simulated world in which there is no human-caused warming.<\/p>\n

Analyses done this summer show<\/a>that hotter global temperatures created conditions that made the wildfires in Spain 20 times more likely to happen, and twice as probable in France.<\/p>\n

This is due to a phenomenon known as weather whiplash, where ecosystems swing dramatically between wet and dry conditions.<\/p>\n

When the planet warms, the atmosphere holds more moisture, rainfall is intensified, and plants grow. Then, in summer, that same warm atmosphere draws water from soil and plants, worsening drought and drying out vegetation, turning it into the perfect fuel for fires.<\/p>\n

“We know \u2014 and this is mathematically proven \u2014 that the probability of having fire weather that can sustain and create this kind of event has been altered by climate change,” Francesca Di Giuseppe, a fire forecast project coordinator at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, told DW about this summer’s fires in Spain and France.<\/p>\n

Climate change’s ripple effects<\/h2>\n

Overall, this summer has left its mark in numerous ways that are impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n

Bodies of water across Europe are drying out under the intense heat. Parts of the Rhine, Danube and Po rivers have fallen to historically low levels<\/a>, making it impossible for ships to pass through in some spots.<\/p>\n

\"Cargo
Drought and heat have pushed the Rhine to historic lows, forcing cargo ships to carry lighter loadsImage: Martin Meissner\/AP Photo\/picture alliance<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This has a number of knock-on effects. Drinking water costs could rise dramatically as much of Germany’s clean water first passes through\u00a0reed-filled riverbanks that are crucial for filtration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Supply chains are also be disrupted, as vessels can’t carry as much cargo when water levels are lower, increasing prices across the economy in products like steel or petroleum.<\/p>\n

In America, drought conditions are wreaking havoc<\/a> on crops and livestock. In June, the US Department of Agriculture said the 10-month stretch from August 2025 to May 2026 was the nation’s driest period since 1976-77.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, 59% of the country’s sorghum is being grown in\u00a0areas experiencing drought<\/a>.\u00a0More than half the nation’s cattle production and almost two-thirds of\u00a0spring wheat production is happening under water scarcity.<\/p>\n

Such conditions can put direct strain on the country’s food supply, increase prices and threaten rural livelihoods.<\/p>\n

By any measurement \u2014 thermometers, drought maps, or death tolls \u2014 and in much of the world, this summer has been historically extreme.<\/p>\n

Edited by: Tamsin Walker<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Why Europe’s extreme summers are getting worse<\/h2>\n

As a summer of European extreme heat<\/a> draws to a close, politicians are looking back at the toll. Germany\u00a0recorded<\/a>around 14,000 heat-related deaths, almost two-thirds in one scorching week of June alone. A Dutch bank estimated<\/a> summer heat will cost the EU \u20ac180 billion ($209 billion) in lost GDP. And in June, European farmers lost<\/a>\u00a0approximately 9 million tons in grain crops.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Climate change, long a politically charged topic, has become a daily reality for people around the world. These effects and more are making it increasingly difficult to challenge what people are seeing with their own eyes.<\/p>\n

Yet that hasn’t stopped the global populist right<\/a>\u00a0from trying. Richard Tice, deputy leader\u00a0of the UK’s far-right\u00a0Reform Party said<\/a>\u00a0“climate change has always happened, it always will,”\u00a0adding that it was arrogant to try to stop it. He encouraged the British public to enjoy the heat.<\/p>\n

In the United States, Harriet Hageman, a Republican politician and potentially\u00a0Wyoming’s next senator, told<\/a> far-right channel Real America’s Voice that Europe\u2019s heatwave was business as usual. “It’s called summer. Some years are hotter than others and some years are colder than others,”\u00a0she said. “But that’s just the cyclical nature of weather.”<\/p>\n

And Tino Chrupalla,\u00a0co-leader of Germany\u2019s far-right AfD<\/a> party told<\/a>\u00a0a journalist in recent days that it’s been a “completely normal summer.”\u00a0He dismissed\u00a0climate change<\/a> as “hype.”\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nBut claims like these don’t stand up to scientific scrutiny.<\/p>\n

As NASA\u00a0states<\/a>plainly: “Scientific evidence continues to show that human activities (primarily the human burning of fossil fuels) have warmed Earth’s surface and its ocean basins, which in turn have continued to impact Earth\u2019s climate.”<\/p>\n

This summer has been historically hot. Independent climate monitoring bodies, including the\u00a0National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a>\u00a0(NOAA) in the US, the Copernicus Climate Change Service<\/a> in the European Union and the Japan Meterological Agency<\/a>, all called last month either the joint-warmest or joint-second warmest month on record.<\/p>\n

The conditions have\u00a0led energy plants to halt\u00a0production, outdated concrete motorways blowing up, and older buildings overheating during the day and barely cooling down at night\u00a0\u2014\u00a0threatening inhabitants with exposure to heat stress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The extreme heat was felt almost everywhere on the globe. According to NOAA’s data, it was the warmest July ever for North America, Africa and Asia.<\/p>\n

The continental United States just surpassed<\/a>its warmest July records. They were previously set in 1936, during the infamous Dust Bowl that scorched the US Great Plains with extreme temperatures, and in 2012, when North America suffered an extreme heatwave.<\/p>\n

And the daily average sea surface temperature hit<\/a>its highest level since records began in 1979 \u2014 reaching 21.1 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit) this month. That’s a result of both human-driven warming as well as El Nino, a climate cycle that weakens trade winds and warms tropical Pacific surface temperatures.<\/p>\n

In Spain, the far-right Vox party said<\/a>fires\u00a0\u2014\u00a0which burned more than 254,000 hectares of land across the country this season\u00a0\u2014\u00a0were not connected to climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet experts agree rising global temperatures\u00a0played a major role in the intense wildfire season<\/a> that also scorched large parts of France and Canada. That’s because extreme heat\u00a0creates ideal conditions for wildfires to start and spread.<\/p>\n

A field of climate research called attribution science explores the extent to which climate change exacerbates extreme weather events like this summer’s wildfires. Using models, researchers compare the likelihood and intensity of an event in today’s climate with a simulated world in which there is no human-caused warming.<\/p>\n

Analyses done this summer show<\/a>that hotter global temperatures created conditions that made the wildfires in Spain 20 times more likely to happen, and twice as probable in France.<\/p>\n

This is due to a phenomenon known as weather whiplash, where ecosystems swing dramatically between wet and dry conditions.<\/p>\n

When the planet warms, the atmosphere holds more moisture, rainfall is intensified, and plants grow. Then, in summer, that same warm atmosphere draws water from soil and plants, worsening drought and drying out vegetation, turning it into the perfect fuel for fires.<\/p>\n

“We know \u2014 and this is mathematically proven \u2014 that the probability of having fire weather that can sustain and create this kind of event has been altered by climate change,” Francesca Di Giuseppe, a fire forecast project coordinator at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, told DW about this summer’s fires in Spain and France.<\/p>\n

Overall, this summer has left its mark in numerous ways that are impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n

Bodies of water across Europe are drying out under the intense heat. Parts of the Rhine, Danube and Po rivers have fallen to historically low levels<\/a>, making it impossible for ships to pass through in some spots.<\/p>\n

This has a number of knock-on effects. Drinking water costs could rise dramatically as much of Germany’s clean water first passes through\u00a0reed-filled riverbanks that are crucial for filtration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Supply chains are also be disrupted, as vessels can’t carry as much cargo when water levels are lower, increasing prices across the economy in products like steel or petroleum.<\/p>\n

In America, drought conditions are wreaking havoc<\/a> on crops and livestock. In June, the US Department of Agriculture said the 10-month stretch from August 2025 to May 2026 was the nation’s driest period since 1976-77.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, 59% of the country’s sorghum is being grown in\u00a0areas experiencing drought<\/a>.\u00a0More than half the nation’s cattle production and almost two-thirds of\u00a0spring wheat production is happening under water scarcity.<\/p>\n

Such conditions can put direct strain on the country’s food supply, increase prices and threaten rural livelihoods.<\/p>\n

By any measurement \u2014 thermometers, drought maps, or death tolls \u2014 and in much of the world, this summer has been historically extreme.<\/p>\n

Edited by: Tamsin Walker<\/em><\/p>\n

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video<\/a><\/p>\n

[analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/was-the-heat-of-this-summer-really-normal\/a-78513682″]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/static.dw.com\/image\/78284700_6.jpg”] https:\/\/p.dw.com\/p\/5JQzi As temperatures climbed past 40 degrees Celsius across southern Europe this summer, scientists say such extreme heat is increasing due to human-caused climate changeImage: Tiziana Fabi\/AFP As a summer of European extreme heat draws to a close, politicians are looking back at the toll. Germany\u00a0recordedaround 14,000 heat-related deaths, almost two-thirds in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,74],"class_list":["post-2114539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-dw-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2114539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2114539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2114539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2114539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2114539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}