Climate change has made Europe’s largest cities, on average, 2.2 degrees Celsius warmer compared to a pre-industrial world. This not only makes them hotter in general, but increases the risk of heat waves, Otto said.
This summer was the third hottest on record, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Extreme heat is also putting older people and those with underlying health conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes, at higher risk.
People aged 65 and over accounted for 85 percent of the estimated excess heat-related deaths this summer, according to the study, highlighting how hotter summers are becoming increasingly deadly for Europe’s aging population.
“An increasing heat wave temperature of just 2 to 4 degrees [Celsius] can mean the difference between life and death for thousands of people,” said Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, a lecturer at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, who contributed to the study. “This is why heat waves are known as silent killers.”
But this estimated death toll is just a snapshot, according to the researchers, as the study only focused on 854 cities with more than 50,000 people in the EU and the U.K. This represents only about 30 percent of Europe’s population.