Western Europe recorded its hottest June on record last month as an intense heatwave swept across the continent, underscoring how climate change is making extreme heat more frequent, longer-lasting and more severe, the European Union's climate monitor said on Thursday.The findings come as another heatwave grips parts of Europe this week, following a record-breaking spell in June and an unusually early bout of extreme heat in May.Also Read: Western Europe records its hottest June as heatwaves surgeAverage temperatures across western Europe reached 20.74 degrees Celsius in June, more than 3 degrees above the 1991-2020 average, according to the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service. The reading surpassed the region's previous June record set in 2025."We will see more heatwaves in a warmer world," Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which operates Copernicus, said."They will be more intense and they will last longer, and they will impact more geographical areas," Burgess told AFP.Globally, June was the second hottest on record, matching Europe's second warmest June, as human-induced climate change continued to drive temperatures higher. Global temperatures during the month were 1.39 degrees Celsius above the estimated pre-industrial average for 1850-1900, Copernicus said.The world's oceans also recorded their warmest June on record as the developing El Niño weather pattern gathered strength in the tropical Pacific.Also Read: Europe may face 'more deadly weeks' as new heatwave builds, WHO warns"We're at a transition point where climate change is shifting from being an abstract statistical future problem that you read about in reports, to a concrete present and disruptive feature of daily life," Burgess said.Heatwave leaves deadly impactEurope, the world's fastest-warming continent, has been experiencing increasingly frequent and intense heatwaves as changing atmospheric circulation amplifies extreme weather.A persistent "heat dome" — a high-pressure system that traps hot air over a region — drove temperatures to record highs across several countries in June.The heatwave was linked to thousands of deaths, particularly in France, Spain and Belgium, while more than 410 million people — over two-thirds of Europe's population — endured temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius between June 15 and June 30, according to an AFP analysis.Copernicus said the June heatwave "contributed to severe health impacts, including heat-related deaths".Separately, a report by NGO Global Witness, shared exclusively with AFP, estimated that nearly 300 million people, including around 100 million children and elderly people, may have been exposed to harmful levels of ozone pollution during the extreme heat.Burgess said unusually high humidity made the heatwave even more dangerous."It was extremely humid, which then meant we people didn't get relief at night. So we had a number of tropical nights in a row," she said.The Mediterranean also experienced a record-breaking marine heatwave, while unusually warm waters along Europe's Atlantic coast reduced nighttime cooling and increased stress on marine ecosystems."When the sea is warm, we get less alleviation at nighttime because there's no coolness coming from the ocean. There's no sea breeze," Burgess said.The prolonged hot and dry conditions also heightened drought risks across eastern Europe and fuelled wildfires in the Iberian Peninsula and southern France, Copernicus said.Adapting to a warmer futureLast month, World Weather Attribution, a network of climate scientists, described Europe's June heatwave as the "most severe ever recorded" based on a three-day forecast of average peak temperatures. The group said such an event would have been "virtually impossible" without human-driven climate change and estimated that a comparable heatwave in June 2003 would have been about 2 degrees Celsius cooler.Burgess said Europe must accelerate efforts to adapt to a rapidly warming climate."Many amazing buildings across Europe were built hundreds of years ago, and that climate no longer exists," she said.She also stressed the need to rapidly eliminate emissions from fossil fuels."Heatwaves will only get worse the more (emissions from) fossil fuel we pump into the atmosphere," she said.