The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said Monday that early data show the beginning of July saw the hottest week on record globally.

“The world just had the hottest week on record, according to preliminary data,” the WMO said in a statement after climate change and the early stages of the El Nino weather pattern drove the hottest June on record.

Temperatures are breaking records both on land and in the oceans, with “potentially devastating impacts on ecosystems and the environment,” the WMO warned.

“We are in uncharted territory and we can expect more records to fall as El Nino develops further and these impacts will extend into 2024,” said Christopher Hewitt, WMO Director of Climate Services. “This is worrying news for the planet.”

According to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, the summer of 2022 was Europe’s hottest ever. Overall, last year was the world’s fifth warmest since at least 1850, with the previous eight years being the hottest on record.

Europe’s Killer Summer Of 2022 Kills More Than 61,000

Europe, the world’s fastest warming continent, experienced its hottest summer on record in 2022, as countries were hit by blistering heat waves, crop-withering droughts and devastating wildfires.

The European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat had reported an unusually high number of excess deaths over the summer, but the amount directly linked to the heat had not been previously quantified.

A team of researchers looked at data on temperature and mortality from 2015 to 2022 for 823 regions across 35 European countries, covering a total of 543 million people.

The researchers from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health and France’s health research institute INSERM used models to predict the deaths attributable to temperature for each region in every week of 2022’s summer.

They estimated that 61,672 deaths were linked to the heat between May 30 and September 4 last year, according to the study published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Such a large number of heat-related European deaths has not been recorded since the summer months of 2003, when more than 70,000 people perished – in what, to this day, remains the continent’s most catastrophic natural disaster of the 21st century.

A particularly intense heat wave in the week of July 18-24 caused more than 11,600 deaths alone, the study said.

“It is a very high number of deaths,” said Hicham Achebak, an INSERM researcher and study co-author.

“We knew the effect of heat on mortality after 2003, but with this analysis, we see that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to protect the population,” he told AFP.

More than 70,000 excess deaths were recorded in 2003 during one of the worst heat waves in European history.

Countries Hit Worst

Last year France recorded the biggest rise in heat compared to its previous summer average, with a jump of 2.43 degrees Celsius, the study said. Switzerland was not far behind with a 2.30C rise, followed by Italy with 2.28C and Hungary with 2.13C.

Italy had the highest death toll linked to the heat with 18,010, followed by Spain with 11,324 and Germany with 8,173.

In Britain, up to 3,469 people are believed to have died from the high temperatures – the highest number in any given year.

In these four countries, temperatures surpassed 40C last summer – and they were not alone.

The highest mortality rates recorded during last year’s heatwaves were in Italy (295 deaths per million), Greece (280), Spain (237) and Portugal (211). Britain, with 52 deaths per million, did not make it into the top 10.

Women

Indeed, the analysis suggests that, overall, 63 per cent more women than men died due to the heat, with the highest incidence in the Mediterranean region.

The difference became starker over the age of 80, when women had a mortality rate 27 percent higher than men.

Europe’s Elderly, The Most Victim

During the last year’s scorching summer conditions in Europe, the new study found: The highest loss of life recorded was among the over-80s.

In light of such frightening projections, there is an “urgent need to reassess and substantially strengthen [heat] prevention plans,” says Dr Hicham Achebak, one of the paper’s lead authors.

Should countries fail to do so, it will be the elderly of Europe who pay the price.

The findings of Dr Achebak and his colleagues show that people aged 80 and over accounted for more than half of last summer’s heat-related deaths (36,848), with older women especially vulnerable.

For the elderly, increased vulnerability can be explained by several factors.

“First, as people age, their bodies become less efficient at regulating temperature and adapting to heat stress,” says Dr Raquel Nunes, Assistant Professor in Environmental Change and Public Health, at Warwick Medical School.

This makes it harder for older individuals to move heat from the core to the skin and maintain a stable internal temperature during hot conditions. Once the body can no longer cool itself, death can come in a matter of hours.

“Second, older people are more likely to have pre-existing health conditions, such as cardiovascular diseases or respiratory problems, which can be exacerbated by heat,” says Dr Nunes.

A largely ‘Mediterranean problem’

There are also the issues of living alone and limited mobility, which can hinder an elderly person’s access to cold places, placing them at heightened risk during a heat wave, she adds.

As to why more women died last summer than men, previous research has pointed to physiological differences and sociocultural factors.

But the researchers from ISGlobal “also found that differences in age structure between men and women partly explained the higher risk for women at advanced ages.” In essence, fewer older men are around to fall victim to the consequences of high temperatures.

For now, at least, the risk of death posed by extreme heat is largely a “Mediterranean problem,” says Dr Joan Ballester, an associate research professor at ISGlobal.

“The summer of 2003 was an exceptionally rare phenomenon, even when taking into account the anthropogenic warming observed until then,” says Dr Ballester.

“In contrast, the temperatures recorded in the summer of 2022 cannot be considered exceptional, in the sense that they could have been predicted by following the temperature series of previous years, and that they show that warming has accelerated over the last decade.”

Europe Is Not Prepared

“Europe is not that super prepared,” says Roop Singh, a Climate Risk Advisor at the Red Cross Climate Centre. “A lot of the countries have typically had a moderate climate, so there’s not a lot of air conditions, homes aren’t prepared for heat – they have big windows to allow sun in, which is great for winter, but less so for summer.”

British houses are particularly unsuited for warm weather. More than a third of housing stock in England was built before 1945, including a fifth before 1919 – when heatwaves were a rarity and the overriding concern was keeping in the warmth.

Victorian-era architecture, an overuse of glass in newly-developed properties, unsuitable housing insulation, and poorly-designed housing and flat conversions, among other factors, are all to blame.

Even in relatively normal summers, 20 per cent of homes in England are already vulnerable to overheating.

“Heat-proofing our houses is so important,” says Ms Singh. “A lot of [heat-attributable] deaths are people at home. It is not something we often see visually.”

Following the 2003 heatwave, several European countries developed prevention strategies for combating extreme summers.

Trees Along Roads

Something as simple as planting trees alongside a road can make a significant difference. Research from Switzerland shows that the cooling effect of trees reduces the surface temperature of European cities in the summer by up to 12C in parts of the continent.

Even after the experience of 2003, last summer showed that Europe is not prepared for what is to come as the planet further warms. Without immediate, meaningful action, tens of thousands of lives could be lost every year to the heat – each death an avoidable tragedy.

More than 68,000 Deaths Every Summer By 2030 Feared

Unless something is done to protect people against rising temperatures, by 2030 Europe will face an average of more than 68,000 heat-related deaths every summer, the new study estimated. By 2040, there would be an average of more than 94,000 heat-linked deaths — and by 2050, the number could rise to over 120,000, the researchers said.

“These predictions are based on the current level of vulnerability and future temperatures,” Achebak said. “If we take very effective measures, that vulnerability can be reduced.”

Raquel Nunes, a health and climate expert at the U.K.’s Warwick University not involved in the research, said the study “highlights the urgent need for action to protect vulnerable populations from the impacts of heat waves”.

Chloe Brimicombe, a climate scientist at Austria’s University of Graz, said it “demonstrates that heat prevention strategies need to be re-evaluated, with gender and age especially in mind.”

Heatwave Turns Texas Prisons Into Ovens

An AFP report said:

In concrete, brick and metal penitentiaries, industrial fans churn warm vapor without really cooling the air in prisons.

And with no air conditioning in most prisons, when outside temperatures exceed 40ºC (104 Fahrenheit), it can feel even hotter inside the cells.

Some prisoners sabotage the toilets in their cells to make the water overflow and wet the floor, which they then sleep on. Others wet their clothes to try to stay cool, according to convicts, ex-convicts and family members who spoke to AFP.

In recent weeks, 35-year-old Martire had four heat-related health episodes at Estelle Prison in Huntsville, where he has served 16 years.

“I just passed out, the medical (staff) refused to see me and I don’t know what to do,” he told his family by phone. They called prison administrators to seek help.

When inmates sense that someone has passed out in a nearby cell, they yell to attract a guard’s attention, but staff shortages often mean delays, Martire said.

The stricken inmate is then taken to an administrative area of the jail that does have air conditioning for so-called “respite.” Prisoners try to linger as long as possible.

“I have already had too many issues with my health before from the heat,” Martire said.

Asked what the heat in the cells is like, Amite Dominick of the NGO Advocates for Texas Community Prisons replied: “The fastest way I can explain that is, go sit in your car on a triple-digit day. Bring a blow-dryer with you. Crack your window a little bit.”

The report said:

The Texas Tribune news site reported that at least nine people had died in state prisons in June from heart attacks or other possibly heat-related causes.

But Amanda Hernandez, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), which is in charge of prisons, said the last heat death occurred in 2012.

In June, the department treated seven cases of people affected “beyond first aid,” but there were no fatalities, she said.

The department, which oversees 126,000 prisoners, said that 32 people died in June, from a variety of causes.

Dominick took issue with that breakdown.

“The coroner will usually report something like ‘cardiac arrest’ because heat stroke is highly correlated with cardiac arrest,” she said.

“We are seeing the same reports. We’re seeing medical evidence for what happens to the body.

“You know, during these types of temperatures, these are heat-related deaths,” Dominick added.

Sean Adams, 36, served time in a prison called the Clemens Unit, in the Texas city of Brazoria, but which inmates call “Burns Like Hell.”

“It is one of the older units that was made out of, you know, red bricks,” Adams said. “And so red bricks are essentially what ovens are made out of.”

The prisons agency said inmates have access to ice and water, and can go to air-conditioned rest areas when necessary.

‘So inhumane’

The report added:

Texas is unlikely to get cooler.

By 2050, the state is projected to see 115 dangerous days of heat a year, with temperatures reaching or exceeding 39.4°C (103°F), compared to around 60 such days today, according to NGO Climate Central.

Samantha, whose daughter is a 25-year-old inmate at the Lane Murray prison, said three prisoners died there in June from heat-related causes.

“The way that they are treated is so inhumane,” she said.

“In the summer months, when you are inside, you see multiple heat-induced seizures every day,” said Marci Marie Simmons, a 44-year-old ex-convict and activist.

She said that in late June, a 36-year-old inmate died in the Estelle prison hours after speaking with his mother and complaining about the heat.

“If we go and leave a kid or a human being or an animal in a vehicle, we are going to prison. But the state of Texas wants to cook our Texans,” said Michelle Lively, whose partner Shawn McMahon, 49, is in Wynne prison.

“And some of them are dying, and they have short, like, stupid drug charges and they have a death sentence because they cannot handle the heat,” she said.

In leaks to the media, prison workers have also complained about their working conditions, including the heat.

Dominick said legislative efforts to do something about the heat have fallen short, with bills demanding air conditioning in prisons withering in the conservative-majority Texas Senate.

Meanwhile, the state recently spent over $750,000 to purchase several air-cooled units for a large swine breeding operation run partly by inmates, Dominick said.

“And they do not have it for human beings.”