In fire-stricken areas of Liège, Belgium, sporadic detonations are heard and the emergency services have had to adapt to the threat.
Outside Bordeaux, France, a massive forest fire has exposed an old cache of what is believed to be ammunition from World War II.
In the Netherlands, a bomb disposal team has been called out to a threatened forest in the province of Limburg, where fierce fighting raged in 1944.
“The Iron Harvest”
Tons of old weapons turning up and sometimes detonating are already commonplace in parts of Europe. Farmers in western Belgium, for example, call the annual plowing of fields on top of World War I trenches the "iron harvest."
Meanwhile, most of the deadly legacy of the wars has remained buried, thanks in large part to stable temperatures and predictable rain.
Burns away
But now Europe's "climate tour" seems to be coming to an end, according to peace and conflict researcher Sarah Njeri in London.
Climate change is now doing the job of digging up and reactivating what was previously stable. Fires can ignite old munitions remnants, but can also burn away the thickets and undergrowth that hide them, says Njeri.
Drought also poses a threat. In Budapest, authorities were recently forced to close the Margaret Bridge over the Danube after a World War II bomb surfaced in the receding water at its foot. In Slovakia, two naval mines were uncovered by the low waters of the Danube. Authorities have also found at least one World War II bomb in the dried-up Rhine.
