This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: For generations, summer in Europe has been languid and dreamy, bringing fine weather and lengthy days on sunny beaches and terraces. But in 2026, the brutal reality of climate change forced its way into daily life.
"I felt a sense of the apocalypse this summer," said Cyril Chedeville, a 59-year-old from Bordeaux in southwestern France. Successive heat waves have roasted the continent since May, bringing temperatures of 40°C (104°F) and above—and dragging drought and devastating wildfires in their wake. Across Europe, temperature records have been smashed—in places that were always hot, such as Spain and Italy, but also in normally cooler countries.
Slovakia saw temperatures reach 42.2°C (108°F) and Denmark 37°C (99°F), both new highs. Relief has been fleeting. By Aug. 19, France had experienced 52 days under heat wave conditions since mid-June, with only a handful of cooler days to break them up—a record-breaking figure with summer not even over yet.
"I can't take it anymore," said Ayse Gurbuz, a 25-year-old student in the central French city of Lyon. "The heat waves just don't stop. Each time you think it's finished, it comes back." "It reminds me of COVID," Djamila, a Parisian retiree, said in late June, as city residents sheltered indoors from the heat.
Across the French capital, where few homes have air conditioning, desperate locals had taped foil survival blankets over their windows, hoping to keep out the fierce sun. With temperatures staying high overnight, the heat wasn't just uncomfortable, but deadly. A provisional toll put the number of excess deaths between mid-June and mid-August at 32,000 across Europe.
The weather brought psychological damage, too, with a study by France's OBESCA monitor finding that 2.6 million people were suffering from "eco-anxiety," which it defines as feelings of pessimism, existential anxiety, social isolation and other negative emotions because of climate change. Weeks of unending heat soon turned into a vicious cycle of drought, storms and wildfires. From south to north across the continent, fires had devastated nearly 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) by Aug. 12, including infernos in France and Spain that forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people.
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