If you were hoping the satellite view of Europe would offer some relief from this summer's relentless heatwave news, we have bad news: it's just as scorched from orbit. New satellite images analyzed by BBC Verify reveal the grim aftermath of successive heatwaves since May - shriveled glaciers, wildfire scars, arid fields, and rivers running on empty.

Even the Palace of Versailles, that bastion of opulence, now appears as a lonely green island adrift in a sea of brown. The EU's Copernicus climate monitoring service confirms western Europe just endured its hottest June-to-July period on record, because of course it did. The Met Office attributes the immediate cause to persistent high-pressure systems, but let's not pretend we don't know the real culprit: climate change, fueled by fossil fuels, making heatwaves more likely and intense. You know, the usual.

The Danube, Europe's second-longest river, has dropped to its lowest levels in 30 years across several countries, revealing unexpected treasures like mammoth bones in Bulgaria and a sunken WW2 warship in Serbia. Because nothing says 'climate crisis' like a 70-year-old warship emerging from the deep to say hello. Meanwhile, nuclear power stations in Hungary and Romania have been forced to shut down or reduce capacity due to a lack of cooling water. The Rhine, not to be outdone, has left cargo vessels stranded and cruise ships cancelled. So much for a relaxing river cruise.

Even the Alps are feeling the heat, with this summer potentially becoming one of the worst for glacier melting on record - and there's still a month to go. After a mild winter, the snow cover was thin, and an early heatwave in May accelerated melting, leaving glaciers exposed and vulnerable. Satellite imagery shows the Rhône Glacier in Switzerland has retreated by 50 meters (160 feet) or more since last year. In a stable climate, glaciers would stay roughly the same size, but as Dr. Lander van Tricht of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology puts it, 'much less snow in winter and much, much more melt in summer' is the new norm, and the future looks 'very dramatic' for the Alps. We're sure that's an understatement.

Wildfires have also had a field day, with over 90,000 hectares (900 square kilometers) burned in France - its worst year on record, according to the European Forest Fire Information System. The largest fire in Gironde, near Bordeaux, consumed about 42,000 hectares, roughly the size of the Isle of Wight. Dr. Douglas Kelley of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology notes that extreme wildfires are becoming 'more and more frequent' as climate change dries out vegetation and soils faster. Satellite imagery shows a striking increase in land browning across western France compared to last year.

Using the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), a measure of vegetation health, this summer's readings came in below the 2021-2025 benchmark across about 70% of France, close to half the UK, and roughly 40% of western Germany. Prof Andrew Challinor from the University of Leeds says the images are 'consistent with widespread water stress,' which 'does not bode well' for agriculture and food production. In the worst-affected areas, soil moisture is lower than on about 98% of comparable dates on record, according to Prof Luis Samaniego from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research. And even if rain returns, some agricultural damage may already be irreversible.

So, Europe's summer is basically a before-and-after cautionary tale viewed from space. We'd say 'enjoy the view,' but there's not much left to enjoy.