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Temperatures reached 46°C (115°F) in southern Spain, while France, Germany and several other countries saw their own all-time highs in the low 40s. In the UK it reached 37.7°C (100°F), a June record. France shut down three nuclear power plants because rivers were too warm to cool them. Trains broke down or were cancelled in many places. 

It isn’t rare for a high-pressure “heat dome” to park over Europe in the summer, but the temperatures that made this the worst heatwave on record would have been virtually impossible before climate change, according to a World Weather Attribution study. 

It was also the continent’s most humid heatwave ever, with wet-bulb globe temperature – a measure of temperature, humidity, heat radiation and air movement – breaking records in almost half of European cities. Under humid conditions, sweating becomes less effective, threatening heat illness or death. 

But the infrastructure in the UK and its neighbours was designed for a past climate. Most European homes, hospitals and schools do not have full air conditioning. Last week, London launched its first heat plan, a welcome step. Why didn’t it happen sooner, though? As the plan noted, 1 million London homes, hundreds of schools and care homes and dozens of hospitals may already be at risk of overheating.  

Experts stress the need for passive cooling, which is often cheaper and, unlike AC, doesn’t worsen global warming. That includes things like planting urban trees, painting roofs white, making pavements more permeable or stretching awnings over streets. People should check on vulnerable neighbours. The stakes are high. At least 1300 deaths have been linked to last week’s heatwave, according to the World Health Organization. And with another heat-dome-style system potentially arriving next week, this could be just the start of Europe’s most dangerous summer yet.

Marie Roman, Roslyn Budd, AIMS, Carly Randall

Coral reefs are in deep trouble. Record ocean temperatures have pushed them past the first-ever climate tipping point, an abrupt shift that may be difficult to reverse. But scientists aren’t ready to give up. Around the world, researchers are racing to restore damaged reefs, using everything from high-tech sea simulators that mass-spawn coral larvae to heat-tolerant algae and coral probiotics. The question is whether any of this can work fast enough, and at a big-enough scale, to help the world’s reefs bounce back. In this interactive feature, we explore the most radical ideas for rescuing the world's corals. Read more. 

The extreme heat currently being felt in Europe isn’t the new normal – much worse is to come, and we are doing far too little to adapt, says Michael Le Page. Read more.  

Growing numbers of homeowners are installing batteries that store electricity when it is cheap, which helps balance the grid and cuts emissions, and cheaper plug-in batteries will soon let more people do the same. Read more.  

A patch of ocean south-east of Greenland is the only place on Earth that is cooling, and it could be a sign that the warm water "conveyor belt" in the Atlantic is slowing down. Read more. 

Efficiency ratings on portable air conditioners don’t give consumers the full picture, and one type of aircon unit is so inefficient that it should be banned, says Michael Le Page. Read more. 

Two companies are aiming to preserve Arctic ice by pumping water onto the sheet and letting it freeze, but only one of the trials found that this delayed melting in the summer. Read more. 

Until recently, the Pamir mountains in central Asia have bucked the global melting trend, but in 2025, the region’s glaciers experienced a massive loss of ice due to extreme heat. Read more. 

A planet-warming El Niño climate phase has begun, but while the phenomenon can influence Europe's weather through long-distance atmospheric teleconnections, the effects are often uncertain. Read more, or check out The World, the Universe and Us podcast episode about this story on YouTube. 

Several start-ups have tried to grow seaweed to remove atmospheric CO2, but this could affect the levels of nutrients in the ocean and hamper other CO2-sucking processes. Read more. 

Our soils are teeming with networks of fungi, and we're starting to understand how important they are. Read more, or watch the podcast episode on YouTube.  

James Yungel

The world’s widest glacier, the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica, is sliding into the ocean at an alarming rate. Over the past few years, researchers from across the world have been racing to study this vital glacier and what its demise means for the rest of the planet. The collapse now seems unavoidable, and the consequences are likely to be disastrous and far-reaching. Read more.