50,391 Europeans died in record heat

Extreme heat across Europe this summer contributed to 50,391 excess deaths, according to a new study by researchers at Imperial College London. The analysis covers June, July, and August and attributes 32,619 of those deaths directly to the added heat caused by burning coal, oil, and gas.

The findings are scheduled for publication in an upcoming issue of Nature Health. The team modeled heat-related mortality by age group in 854 European cities. These cities hold approximately 40% of Europe's population. Italy, France, Spain, and Germany recorded the highest death tolls.

The toll is 71% higher than the previous deadliest summer, which occurred in 2022. In that year, the same research team counted 29,480 deaths. The authors note that the current figures are likely an underestimate because they exclude a deadly heat wave in May and only include the 854 monitored cities.

Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, a biostatistician at Imperial College London and co-author of the study, said that one-third of the deaths occurred between June 17 and July 1. During that period, temperatures ran 5.3 C above normal. More than half of the victims were 85 or older. The heat also killed more than 800 people aged 20 to 44.

Lead author Clair Barnes, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, stated that some cities saw temperatures 12 C above normal this summer. She explained that infrastructure in much of Western and Northern Europe is not designed to cope with the temperatures resulting from human-caused warming. Europe is the fastest-warming continent and is now 2.5 C hotter than in pre-industrial times.

Barnes said that this extra warming can tip temperatures from uncomfortable to dangerous and potentially deadly. To separate natural heat from climate-driven heat, the team ran computer simulations of a world without climate change. They compared those simulations with actual deaths this summer. The gap represents the effect of global warming.

Barnes noted that the share of heat deaths attributable to warming has risen from about 45% in the early 2000s to 65% now. Because heat deaths are often not recorded on death certificates, the researchers relied on statistical modeling. The model accounts for age and each city's optimal temperature, which is the point where the fewest deaths occur.

The team checked their results against government estimates, which mostly matched. For the heat waves in May and June in Britain, the model produced 2,700 excess deaths. The United Kingdom's health statistics agency reported 2,800. Several outside experts described the methods as state-of-the-art.

Dr. Howard Frumkin, former director of the National Center for Environmental Health in the U.S., said that summers are getting hotter while the tools for attributing deaths to heat are becoming more accurate. He stated that these trends produce higher and more reliable counts. Dr. Courtney Howard, president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association, called for investment in early-warning systems, equitable access to low-carbon cooling, and neighborhood buddy systems for people most at risk.

Dr. Jonathan Patz of the University of Wisconsin-Madison said that society cannot keep mopping up the mess on the floor without thinking about turning the faucet off. He stressed the need to address fossil fuel burning to prevent further losses.