Europe endured a brutal record-breaking summer, claiming tens of thousands of lives. Copernicus data shows fifty-two percent of European land faced extreme heat stress.
Samantha Burgess of ECMWF said heat spread across an enormous geographic area.
Heat stress above thirty-two degrees Celsius affected nearly eighty percent of Europe. The extraordinary heat persisted for forty-one days, breaking records throughout the season.
Drought pushed river flows to their lowest levels recorded since nineteen ninety-two. Shipping, farming, nuclear cooling, and hydropower all suffered severely from shrinking waterways.