![\"Downtown](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/b52005d2157dfdebb90f0fc99d113e1b.jpg\"\/)
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Downtown Cologne, Germany. AFP\/Yonhap News<\/p>\n
The heatwave battering Europe has pushed temperatures above 40\u2103 for days, causing numerous fatalities and rapidly melting glaciers in the Alps. Experts predict that heatwaves will become more intense and frequent because of climate change.<\/p>\n
On the 26th (local time), the international journal ‘Nature’ examined the causes of Europe’s record-breaking heatwave and its links to climate change.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The current heatwave is being attributed to a ‘heat dome’ phenomenon in which a stationary high-pressure system over Europe is drawing in hot air from North Africa and the Sahara Desert. The pattern of low-pressure systems blocking the sides of the high-pressure area resembles the Greek letter omega (\u03a9), hence the name ‘omega heat dome’. Changes in North Atlantic sea surface temperatures have also played a complex role. While heat domes over Europe are relatively common, the temperatures this time are being described as exceptional.<\/p>\n
Temperatures in Pissos, France, climbed to a record high of 44.3\u2103, and Germany also experienced record-breaking heat of around 41\u2103. In Odense on the Danish island of Funen in Northern Europe, the maximum temperature reached 36.6\u2103, the highest since records began in 1874. Across Europe, deaths from heat-related illnesses are surging, and in France alone there have been more than 50 drowning incidents involving people entering rivers and lakes to cool off.<\/p>\n
Glaciers are also melting rapidly. GLAMOS, the glacier monitoring team at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, reported that the snow and ice that accumulated in the Alps over the past winter are expected to melt completely by June. At a rate equivalent to one swimming pool of ice disappearing every six seconds, this is the second-fastest melt rate in the 21st century.<\/p>\n
The international research network World Weather Attribution (WWA) analyzed temperatures in 854 European cities and found that nearly half of them have either already broken or are expected to break their all-time records for heat stress this month alone.<\/p>\n
Experts say that as global warming dries out European soils, evaporative cooling has weakened and cloud cover has decreased, amplifying the heatwave. It has also been suggested that reductions in aerosols, which help clouds form, due to air pollution controls may have partly contributed to increased surface heating in Europe.<\/p>\n
According to the analysis, since the mid-1990s, temperatures in Europe have risen by an average of 0.56\u2103 per decade, warming at about twice the global average rate. Excluding the Arctic, where temperatures have risen by 0.75\u2103 per decade, Europe has seen the fastest warming. Since the early 1990s, heatwaves have become more frequent, lasted longer, and started earlier in the year, with high temperatures that used to occur in August now arriving between May and July.<\/p>\n
Some scientists believe that Europe shifted to a new climate regime distinct from the past around the 1980s. Opinions differ on whether this represents persistent warming superimposed on natural variability, but regardless of the precise nature of the change, there is broad consensus that as long as greenhouse gas emissions continue, European heatwaves will become more frequent and more severe.<\/p>\n
Theodore Kipping, a professor at Imperial College London in the UK and lead author of the WWA report, told the New York Times (NYT), “Without climate change, a heatwave like this could not have occurred in June,” adding that future heatwaves will depend on the extent to which greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.<\/p>\n
Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service under the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, said, “Heatwaves will continue until we turn off the global greenhouse gas emissions tap.”<\/p>\n
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) expects the heatwave to gradually move eastward toward the Balkan Peninsula.<\/p>\n
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