[rayiner]

Europe could never "handle" it. Even in 1990-2001, Europe averaged about 3 heat-related deaths per 100,000: https://www.statista.com/chart/36367/average-annual-heat-rel..., compared to about 1 per 100,000 in the Americas at the time.

3 per 100,000 is a lot. That's higher than the homicide rates in New England and the upper midwest of the U.S.

[Timon3]

Are these numbers actually based on the same way of counting heat-related deaths? As far as I have seen Europe looks at excess mortality, while the US only counts deaths explicitly attributed to heat-related issues. If there are different methods in use, I wouldn't be surprised if this accounted for a lot of the difference.