Europe's killer heat this summer claims 50,000 lives. Climate change blamed for two-thirds of deaths

WASHINGTON — Blistering record heat in Europe this summer helped kill more than 50,000 people, with nearly two-thirds of that death toll blamed on human-caused climate change, a new study found. Researchers modeled heat-related deaths for different age groups in 854 European cities during repeated heat waves in June, July and August and found that 50,391 people died from warmer temperatures, and of those, 32,619 died because of the extra heat caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas, according to a study in an upcoming issue of Nature Health . That's 71 percent higher than the previous deadliest summer, which was 29,480 in 2022, according to the same researchers, who produced a study earlier this month tracking yearly summer heat-related deaths in those European cities. And this summer's death figures are underestimates because they don't count a deadly heat wave in May and they only look at deaths in those 854 cities, which are about 40 percent of Europe's population, study authors said. About one-third of the deaths were from June 17 to July 1, a particularly intense heat wave whe