For the third day running, Germany has logged a new national high. On Sunday the German Weather Service confirmed a preliminary 41,7 degrees Celsius at Neißemünde-Coschen on the Polish border, after 41,3 in Saarbrücken-Burbach on Friday and 41,5 in Möckern-Drewitz on Saturday; the previous record, 41,2, had held since 25 July 2019. Into that furnace steps the WDR science program Quarks, on Instagram, with a warning for anyone reaching for the switch: “Was uns abkühlt, heizt die Erde auf”, what cools us down heats the planet up.
The mechanics here, as the German outlet Apollo News reports the post: air conditioning runs on electricity still generated roughly two-thirds from coal, oil and gas, older units carry refrigerants with a greenhouse potential far above carbon dioxide’s, and the calculations behind the post put the added warming at 0,05 degrees by 2050. The study Quarks cites, by Zhang et al. in Nature Communications and dated February 2026, treats that as the moderate scenario; wider adoption of the machines adds a further 0,003 to 0,05. Quarks labels the whole effect a paradox: the hotter the summers, the more units switch on, the more heat they help produce.
On closer reading, the uncomfortable detail is nearer than 2050. The units cool interiors by pushing warm air outside, and for cities the post is blunt: “Für Großstädte bedeutet das: 2 bis 4 Grad mehr in der Nacht.”, big cities get 2 to 4 extra degrees at night. Worldwide, three times as much electricity now goes into cooling as 30 years ago. The same weekend delivered a new mark for Germany’s warmest night: Kubschütz in Saxony never dropped below 29,4 degrees, against the old mark of 27,2 from 2003.
To be fair to the program, it does not ask Germans to swelter. Its stated fix: run the machines on green electricity, switch to climate-friendlier refrigerants such as propane, stop cooling rooms below 26 degrees, buy efficient hardware; Apollo adds the idea of running cold water through district-heating networks overnight. And the weather service is hedging its own headline: “Eine Qualitätskontrolle dieser Messwerte ist noch nicht erfolgt und wird noch vorgenommen”, quality control of the readings has yet to happen, with official confirmation of the records expected only after the weekend.
The catch is what each side counts. A 0,05-degree entry in a 2050 ledger is invisible to any household; a bedroom that never cools below 29 degrees is not. Relief is forecast for Monday, highs back between 25 and 29 degrees, locally up to 32 in the southeast. Follow the cost, though, and it lands on the same grid either way; Quarks has merely made clear where it thinks the climate debit belongs.
Sources
- German State Media Campaign Against Air Conditioning as Country Faces Record Summer Heat
- As Europeans Die From This Heatwave, Germany's Public Broadcaster Wages War on Air Conditioning
- Wegen potenzieller Erderwärmung um 0,05 Grad: WDR-Format Quarks warnt vor Klimaanlagen (Apollo News)
- Erneuter Temperaturhöchstwert in Deutschland (tagesschau.de)
