Extreme August: Facing the expected storm in Israel, Europe is burning
A new report submitted to the President of the State Isaac Herzog by the Israel Climate Forum details the extreme climate events around the world in the last week. In many countries, heat records have been broken, and the oceans are also warming.
The August storm is just around the corner, but the weather of the summer of 2026 is not unusual only in Israel. A new report by the Israel Climate Forum details the climate events around the world in the last week and notes the places where extreme anomalies were recorded regarding climate change. The report, presented to the President of the State Isaac Herzog by the Climate Forum he founded several years ago, presents a disturbing picture of an unprecedented global climate crisis striking simultaneously in many locations around the globe.
Extreme heatwave in Europe
The first region reviewed in the report is Europe. While heavy rainfall and a sharp drop in temperatures are expected in Israel, Europe is groaning under an extreme and continuous heatwave that has broken national temperature records. Among other things, 42 degrees were measured in Slovakia and 41.2 degrees in Austria, leading to a widespread wave of excess mortality of at least 35,000 people, a very partial figure that does not yet include data for August. Germany experienced this year the deadliest summer since the beginning of temperature measurements with about 14,000 deaths; in France, over 40 degrees were measured at more than 500 stations, and in Spain, a historical record of nearly 5,000 deaths attributed to the extreme heat was recorded.
These heatwaves also severely damage critical infrastructure. In Poland, for example, the drop in water levels in the Vistula River due to the drought shut down two coal-fired power plants that had no water left for cooling, leading to a loss of significant electricity production capacity of about 1.3 gigawatts. At the same time, in Greece, the Athens municipality was forced to operate seven air-conditioned cooling centers, distribute water to the homeless, and even stop work in the field during the hottest hours to protect workers.
Heat in cold regions
Even outside the borders of Europe, the situation is no less extreme and illustrates the gaps in adaptation to heat. In the Balochistan province in Pakistan, residents are dealing with unthinkable temperatures of 46 to 50 degrees, while in many settlements electricity is available for only three hours a day. Many families who cannot afford solar systems are completely dependent on purchasing blocks of ice to cool water and are forced to sleep outside their homes.
The extreme heat is also striking the cold regions of the planet, as heatwaves and fires in Siberia and Canada are accelerating the thawing of permafrost, a worrying process that threatens to release hundreds of gigatons of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, thereby further accelerating global warming.
Warming of the oceans
The root of these extreme changes lies to a large extent in the Earth's oceans. In August, the average sea surface temperature outside the poles broke the world record and reached 21.1 degrees. This is an exceptionally anomalous figure considering that the peak of ocean heat is usually recorded in the spring, not at the end of the summer. This warming, resulting from the fact that the oceans absorb over 90% of the heat trapped due to carbon emissions, is what accelerates sea level rise and directly increases the intensity of the storms and extreme rains we are witnessing now.
