Europe is becoming hotter than the norm for the world.
Over the course of three decades, temperatures in Europe increased dramatically, on average by +0.5C every decade.
ISTANBUL:
According to the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO), temperatures across Europe have increased more than twice as much as the worldwide average over the past three decades. This increase is the biggest in the entire world.
According to a report jointly released on Wednesday by the WMO and the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, “extreme heat, wildfires, floods, and other climate change impacts will harm society, economy, and ecosystems as the warming trend continues.”
The paper concentrated on increasing temperatures, heatwaves on land and at sea, severe weather, and retreating ice and snow in 2021.
According to the paper, “temperatures over Europe have increased significantly between 1991 and 2021, at an average rate of around +0.5 °C every decade.”
The analysis revealed that as temperatures increased between 1997 and 2021, Alpine glaciers lost 30 metres of ice thickness, while the Greenland ice sheet is melting and speeding up sea level rise.
High-impact weather and climate events continued to interfere with Europeans’ daily lives in 2021, despite the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions declining 31% between 1990 and 2020, but falling short of the 55% reduction target by 2030.
WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement that “Europe shows a living picture of a warming planet and reminds us that even well-prepared countries are not secure from repercussions of extreme weather events.” “Large portions of Europe have had extreme heatwaves and drought this year, much like in 2021, which have fueled wildfires. Extreme flooding in 2021 resulted in fatalities and destruction.
In order to comply with the Paris Agreement, Talaas urged Europe to continue reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, saying that Europe can “play a significant role towards attaining a carbon neutral society by the middle of the century.”
According to Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service at the European Centre of Medium-range Weather Forecasts, “European society is vulnerable to climate variability and change, but Europe is also at the forefront of the international effort to mitigate climate change and to develop creative solutions to adapt to the new climate Europeans will have to live with.”
