Claim ledger — northern summer 2026 summary tables

Covers media/summer2026_records.png (“What broke”) and media/summer2026_consequences.png (“What it did”). Build script: background/build_tables.py. EFFIS raw response: background/effis_eu.json.

Effort tier: T2 (briefing). Window: 1 June – 8 August 2026. Method: the Carbon Brief Daily Briefing archive (40 issues, 22 June – 7 August, in the user’s mailbox) was used as an index of candidate events; every number in the tables was then taken from a primary source, not from the coverage.

Class A = appears in a table. Class B = supporting context.

Table 1 — What broke

ID	Claim	Verbatim source snippet	Source	Accessed	Tier	Class
R1	Western Europe warmest June–July period on record, 21.62 °C, beating 2022	“Western Europe experienced its warmest June–July period on record” (C3S July bulletin, 10 Aug); “the combined average temperature in western Europe for June-July was 21.62C – beating the 2022 record for the same period” (AFP, quoting C3S)	Copernicus C3S July 2026 bulletin, published 10 Aug 2026	2026-08-11	1	A
R1b	June alone ran 3.05 °C above the 1991–2020 average	“Western Europe … recorded its warmest June on record, with an average temperature of 20.74°C, 3.05°C above the 1991-2020 average for June”	Copernicus C3S June 2026 bulletin	2026-08-09	1	A
R2	Record extra-polar sea surface warmth in both June and July; June value 20.86 °C	June: “The average sea surface temperature in extra-polar oceans between 60 degrees south and 60 degrees north reached a record 20.86 °C”. July: “Sea surface temperature over the extra-polar ocean was the highest on record for July, partly reflecting developing El Niño conditions in the equatorial Pacific”	Copernicus C3S June and July 2026 bulletins	2026-08-11	1	A
R2b	Japan — Kumamoto City 40.3 °C, first 40 °C ever in the prefecture, 3 Aug	“Temperatures reached 40.3 degrees Celsius in Kumamoto City on Monday, breaking prefectural heat records and topping 40 degrees for the first time in the southwestern Japanese prefecture devastated by a powerful quake”; “more than 8,500 people remain in evacuation shelters”	Japan Meteorological Agency via Japan Times / Kyodo	2026-08-11	2	A
R3	France warmest month ever recorded, 24.9 °C, beating August 2003	“a monthly average national temperature of 24.9 degrees Celsius, surpassing the previous records of 24.8 degrees Celsius in August 2003”	Météo-France via Xinhua / The Local	2026-08-09	2	A
R4	France warmest day on record, national average 29.8 °C, 24 June	“The average daily temperature across the country hit an all-time high of 29.8C on Tuesday, according to government forecaster Météo-France”	Météo-France via Bloomberg / NPR	2026-08-09	2	A
R5	South Korea highest temperature ever recorded, 42.5 °C at Yangsan, 2 Aug	“South Korea’s southeastern city of Yangsan reached 42.5°C (108.5°F) on August 2, 2026, establishing the country’s highest temperature since meteorological observations began”	KMA via phys.org / The Watchers	2026-08-09	2	A
R6	England warmest June on record; 38.0 °C at Lingwood, Norfolk, 26 June	“June 2026 was the hottest June on record for England, Met Office figures also show, with the highest temperature of 38C set in Lingwood, Norfolk, on 26 June”	UK Met Office	2026-08-09	1	A
R7	EU-27 burnt area 531,731 ha, 1.4× the 2006–2025 average to the same date	Computed from the EFFIS statistics API response (`effis_11aug.json`): sum of `ba` = 531,731; sum of `ba_avg` = 388,828; ratio 1.37	EFFIS / Copernicus statistics API v2	2026-08-11	1	A
R8	Spain 245,870 ha, 2.6× its own average — largest EU national total	Same API response, ESP record: `ba` 245,870, `ba_avg` 95,246; ratio 2.58	EFFIS	2026-08-11	1	A
R9	France 93,301 ha, 6.3× its own average — largest overshoot in the EU	Same API response, FRA record: `ba` 93,301, `ba_avg` 14,756; ratio 6.32	EFFIS	2026-08-11	1	A
R10	~~US at National Preparedness Level 5 since 18 July 2026~~ — row removed 2026-08-09 at the user’s request; claim retained here as it remains verified	“National Preparedness Level 5 as of July 18, 2026 at 7:30 a.m. MDT (on a scale from 1 to 5)”	US National Interagency Fire Center	2026-08-09	1	—
R11	Canada c. 3 M ha burned; among the most intense seasons on record	“Canada has surpassed 3 million hectares burned during the 2026 wildfire season” / Prime Minister Carney calls it “One of the most intense wildfire seasons in Canadian history”	Canadian government / CIFFC via media	2026-08-09	2	A
R12	Southern England driest month ever recorded, series from 1836	“England and Wales have provisionally, recorded their driest July on record, with Southern England seeing its driest month ever recorded, in a series dating back to 1836”	UK Met Office, 3 Aug 2026	2026-08-09	1	A
R13	England July rainfall 6.5 mm, 10% of average, previous record 13.4 mm (1911)	“just 6.5mm of rainfall recorded – just 10% of its long-term meteorological average for the month, and less than half of the previous record of 13.4mm set in 1911”	UK Met Office via media	2026-08-09	2	A
R14	Danube at Budapest c. 10 cm, all-time low, previous record 33 cm	“The Danube’s levels in Budapest reached around 10 centimeters (4 inches) on Monday, well below the previous all-time low of 33 centimeters (13 inches)”	Bloomberg / AP	2026-08-09	3	A
R15	Danube flow in Romania 1,500 m³/s, under a third of the July average	“The Danube’s water flow has fallen to 1,500 cubic meters per second in Romania, less than a third of its July average”	Bloomberg / AP	2026-08-09	3	A
R16	France third-driest July on record; rainfall ~70% below seasonal average	“Rainfall across the country was nearly 70 percent below the seasonal average, making July 2026 the third-driest July on record”	Météo-France via media	2026-08-09	2	A
R17	Swiss glacier loss day 29 June 2026 — second-earliest since 2000, behind 26 June 2022	“The snow and ice accumulated last winter by Switzerland’s glaciers is expected to have all melted away by Monday, marking the alarming second-earliest arrival on record of the tipping point known as glacier loss day. In data going back to 2000, the only time that the tipping point arrived even earlier was in 2022, when it came on June 26.”	GLAMOS (Matthias Huss) via AFP / The Local / RTÉ, 27 Jun 2026	2026-08-09	2	A
R18	Swiss winter snowpack 25% below the 2010–2020 average	“This year had seen 25 percent less snow replenishing the surface of the glaciers compared to the 2010-2020 figures”	GLAMOS via AFP	2026-08-09	2	A
R19	Rhone Glacier lost 1 m of ice vertically in ten days	“Huss observed one metre of ice melted in the vertical direction at the Rhone Glacier within just 10 days”	GLAMOS (Matthias Huss) via AFP	2026-08-09	2	A
R20	2026 ranks second-worst Alpine glacier year on record, after 2022	2026 was “surprisingly similar” to 2022, which for glaciers was “by far the most extreme year ever recorded in the Alps”; “2026 currently ranks as the second-worst year on record”	GLAMOS via AFP	2026-08-09	2	B

Table 2 — What it did

ID	Claim	Verbatim source snippet	Source	Accessed	Tier	Class
C1	10,650 excess deaths across 26 European countries, week 22–28 June	“there were no other known major factors … that would have contributed to the spike to 10,650 excess deaths in that week”; data “pooled from national mortality statistics in 27 European countries … during the week of 22 to 28 June”	EuroMOMO via Reuters, 13 Jul 2026	2026-08-09	2	A
C2	Over 9,000 of those were aged 65 and over	“The vast majority — more than 9,000 — were among people aged 65 and above, according to data published by EuroMOMO”	EuroMOMO via Reuters	2026-08-09	2	A
C3	France and Belgium the only countries at “very high excess” mortality	“France and Belgium were the only two countries in Europe to log ‘very high excess’ mortality in the last week of June”	EuroMOMO via Reuters	2026-08-09	2	A
C4	France ~2,700 heat-related deaths in the June heatwave	“Guest post: France’s June heatwave caused more than 2,700 heat-related deaths”	Carbon Brief guest post, 8 Jul 2026 (Santé publique France data)	2026-08-09	2	A
C5	France cut 6.3 GW of nuclear output across eight reactors, 13 June	“France reduced nuclear power generation by 6.3 gigawatts (GW) across eight reactors early on June 13” — Saint-Alban 1 and 2, Bugey 3, 4 and 5, Golfech 2, Blayais 1 and 3	EDF / RTE via Montel, Egypt Oil & Gas	2026-08-09	2	A
C6	Peak curtailment 6.2 GW on 24 June, 9.8% of the fleet	“curbs that peaked at 6.2 GW on June 24, or 9.8% of the fleet”	pv magazine analysis of RTE data	2026-08-09	2	A
C7	Golfech limit: Garonne must not exceed 28 °C after discharge	“Regulations at the Golfech plant require that the temperature of the Garonne River not exceed 28°C after cooling water is discharged”	EDF regulatory limits via media	2026-08-09	2	B
C8	Paks (Hungary) cut 491 MW	“Hungary’s Paks Nuclear Power Plant has had to slash 491 megawatts of output due to the low water crisis”	Bloomberg	2026-08-09	3	A
C9	Cernavoda (Romania) one unit shut, plant at about half capacity	“Authorities have already shut down one reactor unit at the Cernavoda plant, which is operating at about half its normal capacity”	Bloomberg / AP	2026-08-09	3	A
C10	China record loads on three regional grids; Anhui peak 69.99 GW, +2.1% y/y	“Electricity loads reached record highs in the State Grid’s northern, northeastern and eastern regional networks” / “peak power demand hit a record 69.99 million kilowatts on Tuesday, up 2.1% from a year earlier”	State Grid Corporation of China via Reuters	2026-08-09	2	A
C11	51.4% of England in official drought from 29 July, seven areas	“On 29 July 2026 the Environment Agency moved half of England, including London, into official drought status, with seven areas covering 51.4% of the country affected”	UK Environment Agency via House of Commons Library	2026-08-09	1	A
C12	29.4 M customers under hosepipe restrictions	“more than 29.4 million customers across the UK will be prohibited from using hosepipes by the end of next week”	UK water companies via media	2026-08-09	3	A
C13	Romania used 180 kg of explosives at the Bala Canal to steer water to Cernavoda	“Romania’s military used 180 kilograms (397 pounds) of explosives to blast rock near the Danube’s Bala Canal in order to redirect water into the river’s main channel and toward the state-owned Cernavoda nuclear power plant”	Bloomberg / AP	2026-08-09	3	A
C14	British Columbia: provincial state of emergency 8 Aug, over 20,000 evacuated	“The Canadian government has announced it will provide urgent assistance to British Columbia after a series of unprecedented fast-moving wildfires forced more than 20,000 people to evacuate”; “Of 102 wildfires burning across the province as of yesterday, nearly half were ‘out of control’ according to the BC Wildfire Service”; “On Saturday, British Columbia had declared a provincial state of emergency”	BC Wildfire Service / Premier David Eby, via Guardian, Reuters, AP	2026-08-11	2	A
C15	Bald Range fire ~9,500 ha; evacuation orders at Summerland and Peachland	“The Bald Range wildfire has grown rapidly, burning about 9,500 hectares (23,500 acres) and prompting evacuation orders in Summerland, Peachland and other districts west of Okanagan Lake”	BC Wildfire Service via media	2026-08-11	2	B

Deviation log

Check	Result
EU burnt area	Secondary reporting contradicted. A web search returned “roughly two and a half times the 20-year average” for EU burnt area. Querying the EFFIS statistics API directly gives 503,592 ha against a 388,828 ha average to the same date — 1.30×, not 2.5×. The table uses the EFFIS figure. The same search also mixed a 29 July snapshot (457,459 ha) with what appear to be figures from a different year.
Fire season shape	The headline “record European fire season” is not what the data shows. France (6.3×) and Spain (2.3×) are far above their own averages, but Portugal (0.5×) and Greece (0.6×) are below theirs. Carbon Brief ran a factcheck on 31 July (“No, Europe is not having its ‘quietest’ year for wildfires”), so the framing was contested in both directions. The table reports the EU aggregate and the two national outliers rather than asserting a Europe-wide record.
France temperature	Unsupported figure rejected. An early search suggested a French record near 46 °C. Météo-France’s records are a national daily average of 29.8 °C (24 June, all-time high for any month) and a local peak of 44.3 °C at Pissos. The table uses the national average, which is the record actually claimed.
Excess deaths	Sources differ by aggregation. Reuters reports 10,650 for the week 22–28 June; phys.org reports “at least 12,000”; another aggregation gives 14,260 for the final week of June. The table uses the week-specific EuroMOMO figure and states the week explicitly, so the basis is visible.
US burnt area	Claim dropped. Reported year-to-date acreage ranged from “nearly 5.2 million” to “more than 5.6 million” across outlets, and NIFC’s own page does not carry a year-to-date total in text. The table therefore uses the NIFC fact that could be verified directly — National Preparedness Level 5 since 18 July — rather than a contested acreage.
South Korea	Two figures circulated for the national record: 42.5 °C and 41.4 °C. Two independent reports (phys.org, The Watchers) give 42.5 °C at Yangsan on 2 August as the all-time national high; 41.4 °C appears to be an earlier reading in the same sequence. Table uses 42.5 °C.
EuroMOMO country count	Reuters says 27 countries; EuroMOMO’s own page for week 32 lists 26 participating countries (Slovenia did not contribute). Table and source note use 26.
Belgium row	An earlier draft carried “worst heatwave mortality since 2000” (Sciensano) with “highest” in the number column, which reads poorly in a numeric field. Replaced with the France-and-Belgium “very high excess” fact, which is numeric (2 of 26). Sciensano removed from the source note accordingly.
US fire row	Removed 2026-08-09 at the user’s request. The United States is now unrepresented in the Fire group. The claim itself was verified (R10) and could be reinstated, or replaced with a year-to-date acreage — but see the “US burnt area” row above: reported acreage ranges from 5.2 M to 5.6 M across outlets and NIFC carries no year-to-date total in page text, so any acreage row would rest on contested reporting.
Greenland	Considered and excluded. The widely-reported sixfold increase in Greenland meltwater production (12.7 → 82.4 Gt per decade) is a trend since 1990 published in Nature Communications, not an event of the 2026 northern summer. It does not belong in a table of records set in a single season.
Glacier loss day date	Reports published 27 June 2026 said the threshold would be crossed “by Monday”. 27 June 2026 was a Saturday, so Monday was 29 June; a later report states 29 June explicitly. Date checked rather than inferred.

Revision, 11 August 2026

Both tables were rebuilt on 11 August after a review of the preceding week.

Refreshed (the originals were three days stale, and moving fast): EU burnt area 503,592 → 531,731 ha and 1.30× → 1.4×; Spain 223,403 → 245,870 ha and 2.3× → 2.6×; France 93,020 → 93,301 ha. Spain accounted for 22,467 ha of the 28,139 ha EU increase in three days. Date labels moved from “to 8 Aug” to “to 11 Aug”.

Superseded: the “Western Europe warmest June on record, 20.74 °C” row was replaced by “warmest June–July on record, 21.62 °C”, published by Copernicus on 10 August. The June anomaly (+3.05 °C) is retained inside the new row rather than carried as a separate line, so no information was lost. The global-ocean row was rewritten to cover both June and July, July having also set a record; the number shown remains the June value, and the “When” column says June so the figure is not mis-attributed.

Added: Japan — Kumamoto (R2b) and British Columbia (C14). The consequences table’s first group was renamed from “Lives” to “People” so that an evacuation row sits there without implying deaths.

Reviewed and not added, in line with the scope the tables were built to:

Typhoon Dolphin — China evacuated more than one million people as it made landfall in Zhejiang. A large number, but a typhoon is not part of the heat–fire–drought chain these tables trace. Held pending a decision to widen the frame.
Rhine low water splitting cargo traffic; Danube shipwrecks exposed by record-low water; global food prices at a three-year high; Europe’s power system under compound stress (nuclear and coal off, hydro curtailed, a solar eclipse on 12 August adding load). All real, none a record.
Arctic sea ice sixth lowest for July, Antarctic fifth lowest (C3S). Would extend the Ice group beyond glaciers, but a sixth-lowest ranking is not a record and the group holds only records.
July 2026 joint-second warmest July globally, tied with 2024 (C3S).
Below the significance bar: two pilots killed in a Utah helicopter crash, UK local fires, Indonesia’s Mount Bromo fire. The Kumamoto earthquake itself is not a climate event, though the heat compounding its aftermath is.

Revision 2, 11 August 2026 — People group cut back

At the user’s direction the People group in the consequences table was reduced to its single lead row, Europe-wide excess deaths in the peak heatwave week (C1). Removed from the table: C2 (over 9,000 of those deaths among the over-65s), C4 (France, ~2,700 heat-related deaths), C3 (France and Belgium the only two countries at “very high” excess mortality) and C14 (British Columbia, 20,000+ evacuated), which had been added earlier the same day.

All five claims remain verified and are retained above; only their presence in the rendered table changed. Santé publique France and the BC Wildfire Service were dropped from the table’s source note, since the rows they supported are gone.

Two consequences worth noting for anyone picking this up later. The consequences table no longer carries any Canadian or North American entry — British Columbia was its only one. And the People group is now a single-row group, which is a weaker structure than the other two; if it is cut again it would be better folded into another group than left alone.

Revision 3, 12 August 2026 — second scan

ID	Claim	Verbatim source snippet	Source	Accessed	Tier	Class
R21	United States: July 2026 the hottest month in the 132-year record, +1.8 °C (3.3 °F) above the 20th-century average	“July 2026 averaged 76.9°F, the warmest month on record (1895–present) for the contiguous United States. This was 3.3°F above the 20th-century average… 0.1-0.2°F warmer than July 1936 and July 2012”; “Above-average temperatures covered the entire contiguous U.S., with all states ranking in the warmest third of their July temperature records”	NOAA NCEI, Assessing the U.S. Temperature and Precipitation in July 2026	2026-08-12	1	A
R22	Global extra-polar sea surface 20.96 °C in July, beating 20.89 °C in 2023	“average sea surface temperatures outside polar regions hit 20.96C last month, beating the previous high of 20.89C in 2023”	Copernicus C3S via BBC News	2026-08-12	2	A
C16	71.3% of England in official drought — 11 areas, 45 million people	“As of August 2026, 71.3% of England is officially in drought following the nation’s driest July on record… almost three-quarters of England is now in drought, with 45 million people living in affected areas”; the East Midlands, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Kent, East Sussex, Solent and the South Downs “became the latest to move into drought status on Monday”	UK Environment Agency / National Drought Group via Guardian, ITV, Euronews	2026-08-12	2	A

Refreshed again (EFFIS moving daily): EU 531,731 → 544,450 ha (ratio 1.37 → 1.40, still shown as 1.4×); Spain 245,870 → 257,237 ha and 2.6× → 2.7×; France 93,301 → 93,310 ha. Spain contributed 11,367 of the 12,719 ha EU increase in 24 hours. Raw response saved as effis_12aug.json.

Superseded: the England drought row moved from 51.4% (29 July) to 71.3% (10 August) — the figure in the published table had gone stale by 20 percentage points in under two weeks. The global-ocean row now carries July’s 20.96 °C rather than June’s 20.86 °C, July being both the higher value and the more recently published record.

Note on the US row’s units. NOAA’s headline figure is 76.9 °F, which converts to 24.9 °C — numerically identical to the France row directly above it. The anomaly (+1.8 °C above the 20th-century average) is shown instead, to avoid two adjacent rows displaying the same number and reading as a duplication error.

Reviewed and not added: Philippines floods and landslides (15 dead, nine days of rain); Greece’s ageing grid blamed for wildfire ignitions; UK Fire Brigades Union warning on firefighter pressure; Telegraph and Express reporting that Britain faces its “worst food security crisis in decades” with farmers warning of a “brutal harvest”; a fifth UK heatwave forecast. Also noted: hosepipe restrictions are now reported at “over 27 million” people against the 29.4 M in the table — the two rest on different bases (current versus a forward-looking “by end of next week” figure) and are not reconciled, so the existing sourced figure was left in place.

Revision 4, 12 August 2026 — explosives row out, Food group in

Removed: C13, Romania’s 180 kg of explosives at the Bala Canal. Vivid but a detail of method rather than a consequence; the Danube’s record low and Cernavoda’s curtailment already carry that story. The “Water and land” group was renamed Water, the land row having been the Romania one.

Added — a new Food group:

ID	Claim	Verbatim source snippet	Source	Accessed	Tier	Class
C17	UK on course for its worst cereal and oilseed harvest since detailed records began in 1984 — 19.5 Mt	“With 54% of the wheat crop harvested, if these average yields hold the UK cereal and oilseeds harvest would be 19.5 million tonnes, surpassing 2020 as the worst harvest on record since detailed records began in 1984”	Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit analysis of AHDB provisional yields	2026-08-12	2	A
C18	Up to £390 M of lost revenue to UK arable farmers; winter wheat yields 13% below the five-year average	“tough growing conditions knocked as much as 2.5 million metric tons off Britain’s cereal and oilseed harvest compared to earlier forecasts, costing UK arable farmers up to £390 million in lost revenue”; “the average winter wheat yield is currently estimated at 6.8 t/ha, 13% below the five-year average”	ECIU / AHDB, via Farmers Weekly and Reuters	2026-08-12	2	A

Considered and rejected — global food prices. The FAO Food Price Index reached 131.1 points in July 2026, reported as a three-year high, and would have made an easy fourth Food row. It was left out on causal grounds. FAO’s own commentary attributes the July rise principally to export disruption — “heightened concerns over continued disruptions to Black Sea export flows and damage to export infrastructure” — with heat only “further compounding” it. Wheat rose 5.8%, but barley fell 1.9% because Australian and Black Sea prospects “more than offset heat-related yield losses in the European Union”. A table titled “what it did” should not claim a price index driven mainly by war and shipping. Two further checks against overstatement: the index sits 18.2% below its March 2022 peak, and is only 1.0% above a year earlier.

Also reviewed, not added: the Rhine at risk of splitting into two navigable zones (no quantified figure found); Swiss Re’s warning that German heatwave mortality risk is underestimated; Greece’s ageing grid blamed for wildfire ignitions; Europe’s compound power stress with the 12 August solar eclipse.

Outstanding

Fire and drought totals are year-to-date and still moving; the northern summer is not over. Both tables are snapshots to 8 August 2026 and are stated as such.
Several rows rest on Tier 3 reporting (Danube levels, Paks, Cernavoda, hosepipe customer counts). Primary equivalents exist — national hydrological services, MVM and Nuclearelectrica disclosures, Ofwat — and should be substituted before these numbers are used anywhere load-bearing.
No blind claim audit has been run.