Europe's Heat-Alert System Shifts From Exception to Default Mode

Summer 2024 saw European temperatures run 1.54°C above the 1991–2020 baseline—the highest on record—with readings exceeding 40°C in France, Spain, and Italy. The crucial detail: that baseline already embeds two decades of warming. Red-alert systems calibrated for historical frequency are now triggering regularly, forcing emergency infrastructure to operate in near-constant mode rather than exception mode.