Extreme heat doesn’t just mean a sunny day—it can have very real and very deadly consequences, as meteorologist Bernadette Woods Placky explains.

If you were in Paris or Madrid as June transitioned to July, you could be forgiven for thinking you had been transported to the equator, as temperatures across Western Europe soared over 100°F, toppling records during major sporting events like the Tour de France. The unusually early surge of summer heat was almost certainly affected by the overall

Heat records tumbled across the country last spring and summer as heat waves and warmer-than-normal temperatures blistered much of the U.S. As scientist Deke Arndt and meteorologist Dan Satterfield explain in this edition of Extreme Weather 101, those heat spikes are likely to become more commonplace as greenhouse gases heat the planet.

Extreme weather events such as droughts, heat waves and torrential rainfalls are the most powerful and obvious reminders that the climate is changing. These disasters were happening long before humans started pumping heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but global warming has tipped the odds in their favor. A devastating heat wave