Arabic version: صور الأقمار الصناعية تُظهر أضرار الحرارة في أنحاء أوروبا الغربية
According to BBC News, satellite imagery reviewed by BBC Verify shows the effects of successive summer heatwaves across western Europe, including shrinking glaciers, wildfire scars, arid fields and lower river levels. Copernicus, the EU’s climate monitoring service, said the region experienced its hottest June-to-July period on record.
Persistent high-pressure systems brought clear skies that allowed temperatures to build, the Met Office said. Climate change, mainly driven by fossil-fuel burning, has raised average temperatures for decades and made hot spells more likely and intense. Near Paris, the Palace of Versailles appears in satellite images as an island of trees surrounded by brown fields.
Water levels on the Danube, Europe’s second-longest river, have fallen to their lowest levels for 30 years in several countries. Mammoth bones were found on the river bed in Bulgaria and a sunken Second World War warship emerged in Serbia. Nuclear power stations along stretches in Hungary and Romania have shut down or reduced output because river water could not be used for cooling. On the Rhine, cargo vessels have been stranded and river cruises cancelled.
In the Alps, measurements indicate this could become one of the worst summers recorded for glacier melt. Satellite imagery suggests much of the front of Switzerland’s Rhône Glacier has retreated by 50m or more since the same time last year. Dr Lander van Tricht of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology said climate change has brought much less winter snow and much more summer melt.
Wildfires have also left extensive brown areas. More than 90,000 hectares burned in France, its worst year on record according to the European Forest Fire Information System. Satellite vegetation data showed readings below a 2021-2025 benchmark across about 70% of France, close to half the UK and roughly 40% of western Germany. Experts warned widespread water stress could affect agriculture and food production.
