The heat waves Europe has seen in recent years were made measurably more intense because of the greenhouse gasses emitted since the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, according to a new study published today in Geophysical Research Letters. The study also determined that that held true for Europe’s hottest week in every individual year since at least 2021. Their findings come on the heels of this summer's back-to-back heat waves on the continent, which broke heat records and contributed to at least 35,000 excess deaths.
Read more: In Europe, Today's Children Will Live Through Nearly Twice as Many Fire Weather Days Than Their Grandparents The Paris Agreement was a legally binding international treaty on climate change adopted by nearly 200 countries in December 2015, with the aim of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures. A decade later, the world is expected to blow past that 1.5°C target, with optimistic estimates finding that temperatures will peak at 1.8°C under current climate policies. Beyond the 1.5°C threshold, every extra fraction of a degree matters.
The world can expect to see intensified extreme weather, ecosystem loss, and flooding in coastal cities and island nations, along with far-reaching impacts to human health and food security. Europe is particularly vulnerable in the face of a warming climate. The continent is heating up at more than twice the global average rate.
The June and July 2025 heat waves broke records across the continent—only to be surpassed by 2026 heat waves. Surface air temperatures exceeded 40°C (104°F) in several countries, and up to 46°C (114.8°F) in Spain and Portugal. The researchers created a generative AI model known as a diffusion model using simulated weather data from 10 global climate models to predict how extreme heat waves in Europe could have unfolded under different global emissions levels.
The team gave the model the observed weather conditions that caused Europe’s most intense annual heat waves from 2016 to 2025, which typically coincided with a persistent, high pressure system known as a heat dome. They had the model predict daily temperatures under emission levels at the time of each extreme heat event, and under the lower emissions levels of 2015. They found that the emissions from the last decade increased the intensity of 2025 heat waves by roughly a third of a degree Celsius.
Scientists have long known that the burning of fossil fuels trap greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, raising global temperatures. In recent decades, researchers have developed methods to study how historical emissions have affected heat waves, hurricanes, droughts, wildfires, and other extreme weather events. The researchers say that the methodology represents a step forward for climate modeling.
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