This Week in Climate News (June 2026, Week 4)

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A record-shattering, ongoing heatwave affecting much of Europe would have been virtually impossible just decades ago, proof that human-caused climate change is “unequivocally” to…

This weekly round-up brings you key climate news from the past seven days, including Europe’s record heatwave and an update on the US National Science Foundation’s dismantling of a key ocean observation system in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

A record-shattering, ongoing heatwave affecting much of Europe would have been virtually impossible just decades ago, proof that human-caused climate change is “unequivocally” to blame, a new analysis has concluded.

Much of northern, western and central Europe is sweltering under a heatwave this week that is shattering temperature records. Red alerts are in place in the UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and France. The heatwave is the most severe ever recorded in the region, according to the World Weather Attribution research group, which is behing the attribution study.

Attribution studies quantify the effect of human-caused warming on extreme weather events like heatwaves and hurricanes. Scientists analyze observation-based weather and forecast data, comparing how these types of events have changed from past cooler climates to today’s climate, which is approximately 1.4C warmer compared to pre-industrial times.

For this study, researchers compared the ongoing heatwave to 1976 and 2003, which were 1.1C and 0.6C cooler, respectively. In 1976, when some of the previous European records were set, such a heatwave would have been “virtually impossible,” they concluded. Compared to 2003, when the first European heatwave of this century took place, chances of such a heatwave occurring at this time of year were “tens to hundreds times” lower.

France saw its hottest day ever recorded on Wednesday as the national average temperature, which averages day and night temperatures, reached 30C. It broke the record set only a day earlier.

Temperatures climbed as high as 42C in Nantes, a major metropolitan city in western France, as millions of people across the country continue to grapple with one of the most intense and…

During an…

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