FRANCE DROUGHT PUTS DRINKING WATER UNDER STRAIN FOR 1 MILLION PEOPLE France’s historic drought has left drinking-water supplies under strain for roughly 1 million people, with more than 83,000 relying on emergency measures including bottled water and tanker deliveries. September rainfall was 70% below normal, while extreme dryness has already forced record nuclear-power curtailments and reduced crop yields. Water stress could now persist into 2027.

As drought spread and wildfires raged across Europe this summer, the extraordinary heat didn't stop at the shoreline. European waters notched their hottest summer months since satellite sensors began providing reliable data in 1982, according to a Reuters analysis of temperatures recorded at the seas’ surface. Scientists warn that events like this year’s marine heatwaves are becoming more frequent, more intense and more widespread as greenhouse-gas emissions drive up atmospheric temperatures around the globe. The world’s oceans absorb the majority of the excess heat and retain it longer than the land or atmosphere