![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/0024aa7c-614.jpg\"\/)
\nA photo from 24 June shows a map of European temperatures as a heatwave is scorching the continent<\/p>\n
Western Europe this year experienced its hottest June on record as a searing heatwave swept across a continent facing increasingly frequent and intense heat extremes, the EU’s climate monitor has said.<\/p>\n
The report comes as a new heatwave is battering Europe this week, following a record-breaking one in June and an unusually early spring hot spell in May.<\/p>\n
The average temperature in western Europe reached 20.74C in June, more than 3C above the 1991-2020 norm, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.<\/p>\n
It broke the region’s previous record set in June 2025.<\/p>\n
“We will see more heatwaves in a warmer world,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which operates Copernicus.<\/p>\n
\nA photo from 24 June shows a map of European temperatures as a heatwave is scorching the continent<\/p>\n
“They will be more intense and they will last longer, and they will impact more geographical areas,” Ms Burgess said.<\/p>\n
It was the second hottest June on record for the world and for Europe as a whole, Copernicus said, as human-induced climate change continues to push temperatures higher.<\/p>\n
Global temperatures in June were 1.39C above the estimated pre-industrial average, a period covering 1850-1900, according to Copernicus.<\/p>\n
The world’s oceans experienced their highest June temperatures on record, against a backdrop of the warming El Ni\u00f1o weather pattern which is developing and is forecast to strengthen in the tropical Pacific.<\/p>\n
“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,” Ms Burgess said.<\/p>\n
‘Heat dome’<\/p>\n
Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent, and changes in atmospheric circulation are fuelling more frequent and more intense heatwaves on the continent.<\/p>\n
June was particularly brutal for Europe as a “heat dome” – a high-pressure system acting like a lid on a boiling pot – led to all-time and monthly temperature records in several countries.<\/p>\n
Thousands of deaths were linked to the heatwave – mostly in France, Spain and Belgium.<\/p>\n
More than two-thirds of Europeans – 410 million people – endured temperatures topping 35C during the heatwave between 15-30, according to an AFP analysis.<\/p>\n
The June heatwave “contributed to severe health impacts, including heat-related deaths”, Copernicus said.<\/p>\n
![\"Police](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/0024aa7e-614.jpg\"\/)
\nPolice use water cannon to spray people with water amid high temperatures in Berlin<\/p>\n
High rates of humidity were one of the reasons why the June heatwave was so intense, Burgess said.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
The Mediterranean experienced its own record-breaking marine heatwave, with the continent’s Atlantic coasts also hit by hot spells, putting ecosystems at risk.<\/p>\n
“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,” Ms Burgess said.<\/p>\n
Dry conditions raised drought risks in eastern Europe and contributed to wildfire activity in the Iberian Peninsula and southern France, Copernicus said.<\/p>\n
Older buildings<\/p>\n
World Weather Attribution, a network of climate scientists, said last month that Europe’s June heatwave was the “most severe ever recorded” based on a three-day forecast of average peak temperatures over the region studied.<\/p>\n
Such a heatwave would have been “virtually impossible” without the influence of climate change, they said. A similar event in June 2003 would have been about 2C cooler.<\/p>\n
Ms Burgess said Europe needs adaptation plans to cope with climate change.<\/p>\n
“Many amazing buildings across Europe were built hundreds of years ago, and that climate no longer exists,” she said.<\/p>\n
The world, Ms Burgess said, needs to get to net-zero emissions from the burning of fossil fuels as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
“Heatwaves will only get worse the more (emissions from) fossil fuel we pump into the atmosphere,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Western Europe this year experienced its hottest June on record as a searing heatwave swept across a continent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-541002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}