For the past two weeks, Europe has been grappling with a blistering heatwave that scientists have called the worst extreme heat event on record for the continent, made possible only by climate change. Now, a jaw-dropping new assessment of its death toll underscores the dangers of our rapidly warming planet. In a study that has yet to be peer-reviewed, Christopher Callahan, a climate scientist and assistant professor at Indiana University Bloomington, estimates 20,390 heat-related deaths across Europe between June 22 and 28. Callahan’s analysis, currently available on the preprint server Zenodo, is based on a previously developed statistical model that assesses how mortality rate changes as temperatures rise across Europe. He believes his results are qualitatively consistent with on-the-ground reports of excess mortality since the heat wave began.
In France—which recorded its hottest day on record on June 23—health authorities reported more than 1,000 excess deaths between June 24 and 27, and funeral homes in Paris have become overwhelmed, according to the Agence France-Presse. “Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth, heating at twice the global average,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X Sunday. “Right now 150 million people are living under extreme heat, hundreds have died, schools are shut, grids are buckling.”
