Christoph Müller: Heat Threatens Rice Harvests
On 25 July, Müller appeared on the Radioeins podcast "Die Profis" (rbb), which discussed, among other things, the link between healthy nutrition and agriculture. A few days later, on 31 July, he explained to the austrian platform science.ORF.at the findings of a new study published in the journal "Science Advances": heat-related rice yield losses had until now been underestimated by roughly half, because earlier yield models barely captured the impact of individual heatwaves. South and Southeast Asia were said to be particularly affected.
Christopher Reyer: Wildfires as a Symptom of Warming
Reyer's already commented on the (then upcoming) summer on 21 April at the virtual annual meeting of the "EU Climate Pact Germany" (on the "We Don't Have Time" platform), he presented the EU Horizon-funded study "Critical intervention points for European adaptation to cascading climate change impacts."
As the wildfire season broke out in southern Europe, Reyer returned to the spotlight: on 3 July, he provided context on the early fires along the French-Spanish border in the DW News segment "Thousands evacuated as soaring temperatures supercharge France wildfires." In late July, as France and Spain again had to carry out large-scale evacuations, he explained in a PIK video recorded in southern France on 24 July how drought, rising temperatures, and earlier-onset heatwaves create the conditions for fires to spread. Around the same time, he also spoke with Bayerischer Rundfunk about the role of climate change as an "accelerant" for wildfires in Europe.
Christoph Gornott: Crop Failures, Prices, and Supply Security
Gornott's media presence runs like a thread through the entire year and centers on one theme: the vulnerability of the food supply to climate change. It began on 28 May, when Gornott, in a joint opinion piece with Hermann Lotze-Campen in "agrarzeitung," called for supply security to be included as part of civil protection in the National Security Strategy. On 12 July, he presented his study "Resilience Vulnerabilities in Germany's Food Supply" at an expert briefing for the Green parliamentary group in the Bundestag; top agrar subsequently reported that a high degree of self-sufficiency — for example in wheat — does not guarantee security, given how globally interconnected markets are. A day later, on 13 July, Gornott was quoted in a wire-service piece on the harvest season published in several newspapers (including Rheinische Post and Saarbrücker Zeitung) as saying that the stability of the agricultural system is declining and that farmers must prepare for more strongly fluctuating yields. On 30 July, he debunked common doubts about human-caused climate change — such as the claim that past heatwaves were comparable to today's situation — in a GMX fact-check titled "Climate Myths," and on 20 August, in a web.de article on the drought in Germany, he assessed together with agricultural economist Stephan von Cramon-Taubadel which food products might become more expensive or scarce in the short term due to crop failures. Finally, in early September, DIE ZEIT (issue 36/2026) took up Gornott's assessment of growing "climateflation" in its most recent analysis of the connection between extreme weather, drought, and food prices.
Fred Hattermann: Drought, Low Water Levels and Their Consequences
Hattermann's media presence also ran throughout the summer. On 22 June, he provided a soundbite for ARD's "Tagesschau" on the heatwave, followed two days later, on 24 June, by a TV segment for the ARD programme "Brisant" marking the fifth anniversary of the Ahr Valley flood. On 29 June, he gave a live interview on climate change on the ZDF programme "Volle Kanne," and on 15 July he spoke together with Peter Hoffmann to STERN about the drought in Europe. On 17 August, Hattermann appeared on the ZDF economics magazine "WISO" in the segment "Tourism High and Dry: Rhine Shipping Seeks New Routes" on drought and low water levels in waterways; the programme also examined how, in Bavaria, water had to be transported by milk tanker due to drinking water shortages. On 31 August, he was quoted, together with Peter Hoffmann, in the widely distributed 2026 dpa summer roundup — the consequences of the low rainfall for the water balance were said to be very pronounced, with streams and springs, particularly in southwestern Germany, having temporarily dried up completely — and on the same day he appeared in a segment on RBB's "Abendschau" on water problems in Brandenburg.
Peter Hoffmann: Putting the Heatwaves in Context
Hoffmann's media presence centered on explaining the heatwaves of summer 2026 and ran from June through September. On the late-June heatwave, he was quoted in several outlets, including Tagesspiegel, which explained on 21 June why the hot air masses arriving from southwestern Europe and North Africa are now markedly hotter than in the 1960s to 1980s, as well as Berliner Kurier and Märkische Allgemeine (MAZ) on coping with and the consequences of the extreme heat; in addition, he provided soundbites for the ZDF special coverage and ARD's "Tagesschau," and the Funke media group picked up his assessment of the heat. On 15 July, Hoffmann spoke together with Fred Hattermann to STERN about the drought in Europe. In August, he commented in the Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten (PNN) on the long-term records of the Potsdam-Telegraphenberg secular weather station and discussed the summer's overall balance in a podcast on Hessischer Rundfunk (HR); he was also quoted in the widely distributed 31 August dpa summer roundup, according to which it becomes clearer with each passing year how human-caused climate change is concretely affecting weather phenomena in Europe, while Märkische Oderzeitung (MOZ) examined the consequences of climate change specifically for Brandenburg with him. Finally, in September, Hoffmann put the 2026 drought into context in the FAZ.
