Extreme heat: Climate change’s silent killer

A thermometer showing 29° C (84.2° F), is seen hanging from a wall in the shadow, during the first heat alert of the year, on a hot spring day, in a street in Ronda, Spain, May 30, 2024. A man carries a child with its head covered with a towel to protect it from the heat in Jammu, India, June 2, 2024. A street is flooded by the river Schmutter, following heavy rainfalls in Fischach, near Augsburg, Germany, June 1, 2024.

Nearly 62,000 people died from heat-related stress in the summer of 2022 in Europe alone, and, according to a new study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, “With further global warming, we can expect an increase in the intensity, frequency, and duration of heatwaves.”