It might sound like I keep repeating the same blog entries, when it comes to these climate updates with a specific focus on heat waves.
Yet I assure you, this is not the case. We really are seeing more unnaturally and uncomfortably hot weather, more consistently than ever before. I already mentioned in the past how the month of March was the hottest month of March on record in Europe. Now, we can add June to the list of hottest months that Europe ever experienced. Indeed, Spain and England both had the hottest months of June in recorded history. Here's a snippet from the BBC article by Malu Cursino (see link below):
Both Spain and England had their hottest June since records began. Spain's weather service, Aemet, said last month's average temperature of 23.6C (74.5F) "pulverised records", surpassing the normal average for July and August.
Yikes.
According to the same article, France just went through the second hottest month of June on record. Here is another snippet from the same article:
France has registered its second-hottest June since records began in 1900. June 2023 was hotter.
So June of 2023 - a recent year, having been just two years ago - is the hottest month of June which that country has experienced. that translates to the two hottest Junes which France has experienced in recorded history have been within the past few years. Let's also remember that the summer of 2023 was one of excessive drought for Europe, and it hit France particularly hard. Harder, in fact, than the summer of 2022, just one year earlier. Here is a summary from another article (see link below) focusing on the impact of extreme heat waves and record droughts experienced in France in the past three years):
France experienced 32 consecutive days without rainfall this past winter, the driest winter since record-keeping began in 1959. Record heat and exceptional drought conditions in 2022 and 2023 have already caused considerable damage, as reported in the French High Council for the Climate (HCC) annual report, “Agriculture has been badly hit, with crop yields down 10-30 percent, while the drought conditions have meant “virtually no reproduction” of some amphibians and “low or abnormal reproduction” of waterfowl. Tensions over drinking water have affected more than 2,000 municipalities, while 8,000 others have requested recognition as “natural disasters” due to the drought, which is causing cracks in buildings as a result of the shrinking and swelling of clay soils.” Water shortages also cause maintenance-related problems for the country’s network of nuclear power plants, which don’t all have sufficient water available for cooling.
Climate change could further deprive France of 30% to 40% of available water by 2050.
Unfortunately, this is part of a larger pattern for France, a country which traditionally tends to get a lot of rain. But that appears to be changing in recent years. Here is another snippet from the same article/report, which puts these new and alarming trends of less rainfall into focus:
France used to experience an abundance of rainfall. However, in the last decade, the country has begun to suffer progressively severe droughts. Notably, “the average volume of renewable water resources (provided by rivers and precipitation that does not return to the atmosphere) has decreased by 14% over the last decade compared to the previous one.” Without sufficient rainfall, water tables cannot replenish, and rivers cannot receive the snowmelt without sufficient snowfall in the mountains. Glaciers are melting in the Northern and Southern Alps, and mountains in February look as snowless as they do in May. According to the worst-case scenario, most of the glaciers in the Alps could disappear by the end of the century.
Recent forest fires have ravaged parts of Spain, Greece, and Turkey, all related to excessive heat and dry conditions. While I was writing this, I just learned on the news that now Germany is experiencing serious wildfires, as well. Also, there are the heat-related deaths, all of which is unusual for Europe, which normally has relatively moderate summers (particularly northern Europe).
That, however, appears to be a thing of the past.
Record hot months of June in England and Spain, and the second hottest on record in France. Record droughts and wildfires in some regions. Are you noticing a pattern yet? It's hard not to notice a trend here.
Here in the United States, former Florida Governor Rick Scott officially banned the terms "climate change" to stifle discussion, and obviously along with it, any solutions. Donald Trump looked at that and thought, 'What a great idea!" So he did the same, only on a national level. He also infamously referred to climate change as merely a "Chinese hoax."
But it will take more than banning words and discussion (by the way, that goes against the spirit of freedom of speech, which is enshrined in the Bill of Right, right in the First Amendment) to make all of this go away. Problems almost never go away on their own simply because you ignore them. In fact, they usually get worse. Sometimes, much worse.
Quite simply, we cannot afford to ignore the ramifications of climate change, even though this is, rather conveniently, what we seem to be collectively opting for here in the United States. This is all too real. We should not still be arguing or even wondering whether or not this is real. Year after year, we are seeing exactly the unusual weather patterns that scientists - particularly climatologists - have warned about for many decades now. Yes, this was all foreseen, but we collectively ignored those warnings, didn't we. In fact, many of us - especially here in the United States - are ignoring them still.
The climate is changing, and the weather patterns have grown more extreme than ever. They already have reached a point where we truly cannot simply ignore them or pass them off as some kind of a fluke, or just typical heat waves or wildfires or whatever else we say or claim to dismiss these events, and the concerns that go with them.
Below are the links to the two articles and reports which I used in writing this blog entry, and from which I obtained most of the specific information and all of the quotes used in the same:
Climate Scorecard: France News Brief and Action Alert France Has Suffered Progressively Severe Droughts Over the Past Decade September 5, 2023Liana Mehring
https://www.climatescorecard.org/2023/09/france-has-suffered-progressively-severe-droughts-over-the-past-decade/
Scorching European heatwave turns deadly in Spain, Italy and France by Malu Cursino, BBC News, July 2, 2025:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyg5pq584eo
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