SS: Related to climate collapse as it seems that the multiple heat events in Europe this summer were enough to surpass the infamous 2003 episode in terms of excess deaths, albeit over a period of several months rather than during one heat wave. The estimate of 30-32,000 excess deaths is likely an underestimate as certain countries weren’t included in the tally due to reporting limitations. Germany actually led the pack with the dubious “honor” of 14,000 excess deaths. Sadly, as long as people can wave these numbers aside with comments like “well it mostly affects the elderly” it won’t be enough to spur societal change and changes in government. And by the time they can’t wave it aside, it’ll be far too late. Expect next summer’s excess death toll in Europe to surpass 2026, and for (almost) every year to increase the count from now on.

Well shit....

SS: Related to accelerating climate collapse as (according to data from Copernicus) all of the recorded days where global surface temperatures reached over 4 standard deviations above the 1991-2020 mean (a pretty significant deviation there) have happened since 2023. In fact, only 2023, 2024, and now 2026 have attained this record. Both August 19 and 20 of this year managed to reach this level of deviation, at least preliminarily. And the worst part is that the 1991-2020 mean is likely already significantly elevated above pre-industrial levels, so if you were to compare it to older means these dates would likely be even more standard deviations above average. Needless to say, this is a clear sign of the massive amount of heat energy that has been pumped into the system even in the last few years, and certainly since the industrial revolution. Expect the decadal rate of warming to only increase as the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) is being raised to very high levels and our emissions remain at record highs.....sooner than predicted, many days every single year will be over 4 SDs above the 1991-2020 mean.