La Jornada: The heat wave in Europe: are we going down the same path?

While in Mexico we are fighting floods due to overflowing rivers and flooded towns with their effects on people, houses and roads, in Europe they are literally dying from the heat. The last issue of the prestigious scientific magazine Naturepublished on June 26, is dedicated to analyzing the heat wave in Europe that has killed hundreds of people. The question asked is whether it is an isolated phenomenon or if it is here to stay. That is, it is transitory or a lasting change. For this, a series of evidence is presented that clearly confirms that it is a lasting change. Different institutions in various countries reach the same conclusion. However, there are also researchers who consider that it can be reversible, since it depends on the confluence of various phenomena.

In this way, some scientists interviewed by Nature They say that a European heat wave lasting four to five days, with London approaching 40 degrees Celsius, is an anomaly. However, other scientists assure that Europeans can expect more phenomena of this type as global warming progresses. For example, the deputy director of the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in the United Kingdom maintains that “heat waves are here to stay, until we turn off the tap on global emissions, they are more frequent, more intense and last longer. The risks are serious. In France – which this week recorded its hottest day in history, with 44.3 degrees Celsius in the town of Pissos – at least 54 people have died due to heat or drowning in water when trying to cool off.

What researchers don’t necessarily agree on is how quickly Europe’s climate has gone from cool, pleasant summers, in which residents could leave their windows open, to one dominated by extreme heat and doubts about whether to buy air conditioning.

In one of the analyzes published in the magazine, temperatures were studied in 845 cities, where 30 percent of the population lives. This study has revealed that almost half of them have broken or will break their thermal “stress” records in July 2026. All cities analyzed in the Czech Republic, Lithuania and Luxembourg have recorded record highs according to the study, carried out by the World Weather Attribution group, an international organization that studies extreme weather phenomena. What was once rare has become commonplace. Temperature records are occurring constantly, everywhere, and are in fact rising by wide margins. This succession of records in Europe would be unthinkable in the sporting field: it would be as if a high jumper “under the effects of steroids” beat a mark by half a meter, instead of by one or two centimeters.

So what is causing the current heat wave? Like the previous ones, it has been triggered by air circulation patterns, which carry heat from the Equator to the frigid North Pole. Although this air circulation is not fully understood, some scientists believe that when sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic drop, as is happening now, warm air from North Africa and the Sahara Desert may become temporarily trapped over Europe. Climate change is also influencing the severity of this heat wave, according to researchers. In addition, high temperatures caused by global warming have dried out the soil and reduced evaporative cooling in Europe.

Cloud cover, which would normally reflect the Sun’s heat back into space, has also decreased over Europe, due to a combination of drought conditions and stricter air quality laws since the 1980s. In fact, some scientists believe that Europe began its transition to a different climate in those years. “Especially since 1980 there has been a huge rebound in global temperatures in Europe,” says Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth. It’s pretty evident in the data. Last year’s State of the Climate in Europe report found that Europe has warmed at a rate of 0.56 degrees Celsius per decade since the mid-1990s, double the global average rate. Even the Arctic has warmed faster, at a rate of 0.75 degrees Celsius every 10 years. Some scientists have linked the increased frequency of heat waves to reduced sea ice in the Arctic and melting snow cover in Eurasia, arguing that these factors are altering air circulation over Europe.

What these studies teach is that climate change can be expressed in different ways. It floods us, it suffocates “them.”