Extreme heat is expected to occur at increasing frequency and intensity and duration, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Geneva: An extraordinary heatwave in Europe has shattered numerous temperature records and had major impacts on human health, ecosystems, agriculture, infrastructure and labour productivity. It is accompanied by localized violent storms and in some areas by worsening drought and the risk of wildfires.
WMO, its members and partners are mobilising with early warnings and coordinated heat-health action plans to try to save lives and inform decision-making on how to minimise economic damage and disruption.
Extreme heat is expected to occur at increasing frequency and intensity and duration, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Europe is the world’s most rapidly warming continent.
“Heatwaves like this are what we expect to see in a changing climate,” said John Kennedy, head of climate information at WMO. “In the 50 years since the historic heatwave in 1976, Europe as a whole has warmed by around two degrees. It’s the fastest warming continents and extremes of temperature have increased too,” he said.
World Health Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that more than 1300 excess deaths have been recorded since 21 June linked to the extreme heat in Europe. More than 150 million people on the continent were impacted, he wrote in a post on X on 28 June.
The heatwave – which moved up from the Iberian Peninsula – is expected to spread over large parts of Western, Central, and Southern Europe and the Balkans by 30 June, according to Climate Watch guidance issued by one of WMO’s regional European climate monitoring centres, which is led by the Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD).
The regional centre’s Climate Watch information is intended as guidance for National Meteorological and Hydrological Services who are responsible for issuing advisories and warnings in their own territories.
