Summer 2022 Was Warmest On Record In Europe, And Temperatures Are Rising Twice Faster Than Anywhere Else: ‘A Confluence Of Many Unfortunate Circumstances’ | Weather News

Globally, the past eight years have been the warmest on record. For many regions, 2022 was the warmest year on record. Last year, the average temperature was 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial level from 1850 to 1900.

For Europe, 2022 was the second warmest year on record. The temperature was 2.2°C warmer than preindustrial levels and 0.9°C warmer than the average for the period from 1991 to 2020. Last summer was warmer, 1.4°C warmer than the last average.

“It wasn’t surprising to find out that this was the second warmest year in Europe,” says climate expert Jill Peters. “But on top of that, the aridity adds to it. We now have the limitation in the numbers that we see that it was almost record-breakingly dry. As a result, the rivers dried up, making transportation on the rivers more difficult within Europe,” explains the climatologist.

Moreover, there was very little moisture in the soil, which led to many crops failing. It is also the second dry summer there. This amount has ensured that nature was too weak.”

“On top of that, drought and heat naturally cause forest fires. As a result, record areas were burned, especially in Spain. The burning of those forests led to massive emissions of soot particles, as well as greenhouse gases. It was actually a confluence,” says Jill Peters. Many unfortunate circumstances this year.”

“We will have to adapt our lives to the climate,” the climate expert concludes.

As a result of extreme heat waves, Southern Europe recorded a record number of days of extreme heat stress, indicating the effect of temperature, humidity, and wind speed on the human body. The number of days when heat stress is strong or even very severe is increasing. Fewer and fewer days without heat stress have been recorded across the continent. European seas have warmed, too: in 2022, the average sea surface temperature will be the warmest on record.

Overall, 2022 was 10% drier than average. Across most of Europe, the 2021-2022 winter featured fewer snow days than usual. Spring was accompanied by less precipitation than usual. Even in the summer there was little rain, but sweltering heatwaves swept across Europe. Due to the combination of little winter snow and high summer temperatures, a record amount of glacier ice was lost in the Alps, amounting to more than five cubic kilometers of ice.

The lack of precipitation and high summer temperatures also led to widespread and prolonged drought, which at its peak gripped most of the continent. This allowed wildfires to spread and intensify. Vast areas were on fire: only a year was that area larger than it was in 2022. According to the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS), emissions from forest fires in European Union member states last summer were the highest since 2007.

look. Several evacuations in Spain due to forest fires

Scientists of the Copernicus Climate Change Service suggest that these disturbing records are motivated by increased greenhouse gas emissions. Average annual concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) were the highest levels ever measured by a satellite in 2022, 417 parts per million (parts per million) carbon dioxide and 1,894 parts per billion (ppm). billion) CH4, respectively. Scientists emphasized that these levels will continue to rise unless we start to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.