Climate change linked to two-thirds of heat deaths in European cities

Researchers say climate change was responsible for roughly two out of every three heat-related deaths in European cities this summer, contributing to an estimated 16,500 additional fatalities between June and August as the continent endured one of its hottest summers on record. The rapid analysis, led by teams at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, examined mortality and temperature data from 854 urban areas and concluded that extreme heat killed about 24,400 people in those cities, of which roughly 68 percent would not have occurred without human-driven warming.

The researchers used established epidemiological models that relate daily temperature to mortality and compared observed temperatures with simulations of a cooler, preindustrial-like climate to calculate attributable deaths. They found that cities were on average about 2.2 degrees Celsius hotter because of climate change, with some locations up to 3.6 degrees Celsius warmer than they would have been without anthropogenic warming. Europe also experienced record and near-record temperatures this summer, including a 50.5 Celsius reading in Türkiye and deep, prolonged heat in...