Mainland Europe has sweltered for days under record-breaking temperatures, prompting researchers to try to untangle how much of the heat wave can be linked to climate change. A report on that, by an international consortium of scientists called the World Weather Attribution Network, is expected to be released on July 2.
Previous heat records for many parts of Europe were set in the summer of 2003, when temperatures soared to 44.1° Celsius (111.4° Fahrenheit) in the southern French town of Conqueyrac. That extreme heat killed more than 70,000 people across the continent — a death toll that researchers determined was amplified by climate change (SN: 9/3/16, p. 5).