Over 50,000 people are likely to have died from heat in European cities and towns this summer, with human-caused climate change responsible for about 65 per cent of these deaths, according to estimates from two scientific studies.

The deaths, classified as “excess deaths”, are estimated to have occurred across 854 European urban areas between June and August. Excess deaths refer to deaths above the number expected in a population over a given period.

The findings come from two studies by scientists from Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The researchers used temperature data and climate models to compare summer temperatures in today’s climate, with about 1.4 degrees Celsius of global warming, against those in a cooler, pre-industrial world. They then drew on previous research to estimate the impact of the temperature changes on mortality.

One study, examining heat-related mortality in European cities between 2000 and 2025, was published in Nature Health.…