We’re officially in an El Niño year, and as predicted, it’s a scorcher.
Record temperatures are already being recorded around the world, from the streets of New York to the icy shelves of the Antarctic. Even the surface waters of the world’s waterways are under unprecedented stress from the heat, with the average global ocean temperature breaking the all-time record high for the month of June.
The human impact, as predicted, is already staggering. While the heat waves currently baking North America, South Asia, South America and Africa are sure to have their fair share of tragedy, early reporting on weather-related fatalities across Europe makes it clear that these are no ordinary summer conditions.
According to El Pais, June heat has culminated in over 1,000 excess deaths in Spain, 623 of which came as a direct result of Europe’s June heatwave.
In France, where temperatures are eclipsing worst-case forecasts set for the year 2050, a further 1,000 or more deaths have been attributed to extreme heat.
Both tragedies are a terrifying sign of things to come, as the current El Niño phase, a warm period of a 2-7 year climate cycle, is literally just beginning. In 2022, the most recent banner year for European heat waves, there were over 61,000 heat-related deaths across the continent — and it wasn’t even an El Niño year.
Given El Niño’s amplifying affect on European heat, to say nothing of its impact on the rest of the world, it’s likely that number could be a whole lot worse by the time the Autumnal equinox comes around.
More on extreme heat: All But Five US States Are Currently Experiencing Droughts