The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😜
Main Topic: Estimated 16,500 Climate Crisis Deaths in Europe This Summer
Dear Diary. A couple of days ago I presented an article that claimed that Europe had suffered €43bn in short-term losses:
During that diary post I wondered how many fatalities were in association with that much financial loss. Now we have our answer- 16,500 souls…people that could still be with us in a cooler climate. I hope that some of their families will bring lawsuits against fossil fuel companies.
Relatively speaking, most of Europe had a hotter summer than the last United States during 2025. Also most of the U.S. has air conditioning in homes, which cuts down on heat related fatalities. Not so across many European countries, which accounts for the high mortality total from this year. I imagine that most of Europe will be adapting to this new hotter climate with A.C. installation.
One other note. Since we did see more than 10,000 deaths, that would pug Europe’s heatwave this year as a catastrophic CAT5 on my scale of 1 to 5. These have been quite rare but are becoming more common due to climate change.
Here are more details from Phys.org:
Estimated 16,500 climate change deaths during Europe summer: Study
September 17, 2025
Estimated 16,500 climate change deaths during Europe summer: Study
by Daniel Lawler
edited by Andrew Zinin
Rome had the highest number of deaths linked to climate change this summer, according a new rapid study.
Scientists estimated Wednesday that rising temperatures from human-caused climate change were responsible for roughly 16,500 deaths in European cities this summer, using modeling to project the toll before official data is released.
The rapidly produced study is the latest effort by climate and health researchers to quickly link the death toll during heat waves to global warming—without waiting months or years to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
The estimated deaths were not actually recorded in the European cities, but instead were a projection based on methods such as modeling used in previously peer-reviewed studies.
Death tolls during heat waves are thought to be vastly underestimated because the causes of death recorded in hospitals are normally heart, breathing or other health problems that particularly affect the elderly when the mercury soars.
To get a snapshot of this summer, a UK-based team of researchers used climate modeling to estimate that global warming made temperatures an average of 2.2 degrees Celsius hotter in 854 European cities between June and August.
Using historical data indicating how such soaring temperatures drive up mortality rates, the team estimated there were around 24,400 excess deaths in those cities during that time.
They then compared this number to how many people would have died in a world that was not 1.3C warmer due to climate change caused by humans burning fossil fuels.
Nearly 70%—16,500—of the estimated excess deaths were due to global warming, according to the rapid attribution study.
This means climate change could have tripled the number of heat deaths this summer, said the study from scientists at Imperial College London and epidemiologists at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
The team had previously used similar methods to find a similar result for a single European heat wave that started in late June.
The researchers said they were not able to compare their estimates to actual excess deaths recorded in European cities this summer because most countries take a long time to publish that data.
“It’s impossible to get real-time statistics right now,” however, the estimates are “in the right ballpark,” study co-author Friederike Otto told a press conference.
‘Even more alarming’
The estimates did reflect previous peer-reviewed research, such as a Nature Medicine study which determined there were more than 47,000 heat-related deaths during the European summer of 2023.
Numerous prominent climate and health researchers also backed the study.
“What makes this finding even more alarming is that the methods used in these attribution studies are scientifically robust, yet conservative,” said atmospheric science researcher Akshay Deoras at the UK’s University of Reading.
“The actual death toll could be even higher.”
The study said that Rome had the most estimated deaths attributed to climate change with 835, followed by Athens with 630 and Paris with 409.
More than 85% of the estimated excess deaths were among people aged 65 or over.
The researchers emphasized the study did not represent Europe as a whole because some areas—such as the Balkans—were not included.
“An increase in heat wave temperature of just 2-4C can be the difference between life and death for thousands of people—this is why heat waves are known as silent killers,” study co-author Garyfallos Konstantinoudis said.
This year was Europe’s fourth-hottest summer on record.
Here are more “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is More Climate News from Thursday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)