PARIS, France – Western Europe has just lived through its hottest June since records began, as a punishing heatwave swept the continent and claimed thousands of lives.
The average temperature across the region hit 20.74 °C last month, more than 3 °C above the 1991-2020 average, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. The figures surpass the previous record set just one year ago in June 2025.
The news comes as another heatwave batters Europe this week, following the record-breaking June event and an unusually early hot spell in May.
“We will see more heatwaves in a warmer world,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which operates Copernicus. “They will be more intense and they will last longer, and they will impact more geographical areas.”
June was the second hottest on record globally and for Europe as a whole, as human-induced climate change continues to drive temperatures upward. Global temperatures last month reached 1.39 °C above pre-industrial levels, measured from 1850 to 1900.
The world’s oceans also experienced their highest June temperatures on record, as the warming El Niño weather pattern develops and is expected to strengthen in the tropical Pacific.
Heat dome traps continent
Europe is warming faster than any other continent, and shifts in atmospheric circulation are driving more frequent and severe heatwaves.
A “heat dome” – a high-pressure system that acts like a lid on a boiling pot – settled over the continent in June, leading to all-time and monthly temperature records in several countries. The phenomenon trapped hot air and prevented cooler conditions from moving in.
More than 410 million people, representing over two-thirds of Europe’s population, endured temperatures exceeding 35 °C during the June 15-30 heatwave, according to an AFP analysis. Thousands of deaths were linked to the heat, mostly in France, Spain and Belgium.
High humidity levels made the June heatwave particularly dangerous, Burgess said. “It was extremely humid, which then meant people didn’t get relief at night. So we had a number of tropical nights in a row.”
The Mediterranean experienced its own record-breaking marine heatwave, with the continent’s Atlantic coasts also hit by hot spells, putting marine ecosystems at risk. Warm ocean temperatures prevented the usual cooling relief that coastal areas normally experience at night.
Dry conditions raised drought risks in eastern Europe and fuelled wildfire activity in the Iberian Peninsula and southern France.
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Climate change makes heatwaves inevitable
World Weather Attribution, a network of climate scientists, declared last month that Europe’s June heatwave was the “most severe ever recorded” based on three-day forecasts of average peak temperatures.
Such a heatwave would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, they found. A similar event in June 2003 would have been about 2°C cooler.
Burgess said Europe needs urgent adaptation plans to cope with the changing climate. Many of the continent’s buildings were designed for weather conditions that no longer exist.
“Many amazing buildings across Europe were built hundreds of years ago, and that climate no longer exists,” she said.
She warned that the world needs to reach net-zero emissions from burning fossil fuels as soon as possible. “Heatwaves will only get worse the more fossil fuel we pump into the atmosphere.”
Burgess described the shift underway: “We’re at a transition point where climate change is shifting from being an abstract statistical future problem that you read about in reports, to a concrete present and disruptive feature of daily life.”
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