'Silent killer' heatwave

HIDDEN: SCIENCE TRACES CLIMATE DEATHS AS TEMPERATURES SOAR

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A heatwave scorching Europe had barely subsided in early July when scientists published estimates that 2,300 people may have died across a dozen major cities during the extreme, climate-fuelled episode.

The figure was supposed to "grab some attention" and sound a timely warning in the hope of avoiding more needless deaths, said Friederike Otto, one of the scientists involved in the research.

"We are still relatively early in the summer, so this will not have been the last heatwave. There is a lot that people and communities can do to save lives," Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, said.

Heat can claim tens of thousands of lives during European summers but it usually takes months, even years, to count the cost of this silent killer.

Otto and colleagues published their partial estimate just a week after temperatures peaked in western Europe.

While the underlying methods were not new, the scientists said it was the first study to link heatwave deaths to climate change so soon after the event in question.