The third warmest June ever recorded globally is behind us. In twelve European cities alone, a rapid analysis suggests that 2,300 people may have died as a result of the heat.

The heatwave at the end of June and beginning of July was a major burden for many people across Europe. As the latest data from the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service shows, it was the hottest June for Western Europe since detailed records began in 1979 — 2.8 degrees Celsius warmer than the average for the reference period 1991 to 2020. Globally, last month provisionally goes down as the third warmest June in recorded history.

"An exceptional heatwave" occurred, emphasises Samantha Burgess from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. "In a warming world, it is likely that heatwaves will become more frequent and more intense, affecting more people across Europe." How the world compares with and without human-induced climate change is a central theme for attribution researcher and physicist Friederike Otto from Imperial College London (ICL). With her rapid studies, she uses established methods to provide timely context for extreme events — in this case, while the heatwave is still a topic of conversation and fresh in people's minds.

Read the full report by Julia Sica at derstandard.de