by Europe is warming twice as fast as the global average, about 2.2C above pre-industrial times.
Scientists have confirmed this week that the summer of 2023 will be the hottest period ever seen by a large margin on Earth.
ADVERTISEMENT“It’s overstated in the graph, and it makes me really nervous about what’s coming,” said Dr Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
The boreal (northern hemisphere) summer in June-July-August jumps to an average temperature of 16.77C – 0.66°C above the average for this time of year.
“This is one of the challenges we face as a meteorologist,” he explains. I a new record it doesn’t match what scientists thought at the time – although it’s on the “outer edge” of this range.
But, he added, “What makes me nervous is the change we’re seeing in the system.”
To begin with, the ocean has never been this warm. “If I look at the graph of sea temperatureI wonder where it’s going, because it’s not the time of year when it should be high,” he said.
Second, we are A boy year, which has a warming effect on global temperatures.
“We know that every El Niño is different and no other El Niño has ever started with such warm seas. So we don’t know yet how strong the event will be, and we’re watching very carefully over the next few months.”
2023 is on track to not only break records for the hottest summer, but be the hottest year on record. Currently, it is 0.01 degrees after the same period in 2016, explains Dr Burgess.
“With this warming of the world’s oceans, 2023 – unless we have a cold winter and autumn – 2023 will be the warmest year we’ve ever had,” he told Euronews Green.
But, this ‘hottest summer of our lifetime’ could be remembered as the coldest if emissions are not urgently controlled.
“With El Niño developing, 2024 is likely to be the warmest,” Dr Burgess said.
ADVERTISEMENTGlobal warming brings extreme events, as one European country shows summer. Greece has suffered fire and floods in quick succession; earlier this week, one region received nearly twice the annual average rainfall in two days.
The researchers found that every degree Celsius the atmosphere warms increases the amount of water vapor it can hold by 7 percent.
Europe is growing faster than the world average
When we talk about preventing runaway climate change by limiting global warming to 1.5C – according to the Paris Agreement – it’s the global average that counts. Currently, the world is moving about 1.2C above pre-industrial levels and, as Dr Burgess says, “every fraction of a degree counts”.
Europe is warming faster than the global average, about 2.2C above pre-industrial times (around 1850-1900). The continent’s average temperature this summer was 19.63C, 0.83C above average, making it the fifth warmest summer.
Our closeness in the Arctic – which is about 3-4 times warmer than the global average – partly explains this difference. The loss of sea ice around the North Pole affects the region’s albedo (its ability to reflect sunlight) and has feedback effects on Europe. But there are a number of reasons behind global warming.
ADVERTISEMENTWhat is the difference between the temperature of the earth and the air?
The goal of the Paris Agreement to contain global warming is 1.5C (and below 2C) refers to global warming.
This ‘near surface air temperature’ is recorded at two meters from the ground, under strict instructions from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
It gives a cooler reading than the ground temperature because the ground absorbs more radiation. The land is also warming faster than the ocean.
Between 2013 and 2022, temperatures in Europe increased about 2.04 to 2.10 ° C, according to the European Environmental Agency (EEA).
How does European warming differ between countries?
Global warming at the country level varies across Europe. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently released statistics on global temperature change, allowing us to compare trends between European countries.
ADVERTISEMENTThe basis here is different, as the statistics measure temperature changes relative to the 1951-1980 average, not pre-industrial times.
By 2022, the global annual temperature was 1.39°C warmer than the 1951-1980 average. Europe saw an increase in temperature (2.23°C) across all continents last year.
In 22 of the 41 European countries included in the data, temperatures rose by more than 2°C. In terms of air temperature, the summer of 2022 was the hottest in Europe, driven by a significant number heat waves.
France has recorded its highest temperature in 2022
By 2022, the annual global temperature change compared to the 1951-1980 baseline varies from 1.04°C in Greece to 2.93°C France and Luxembourg.
Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany also saw global temperatures rise by more than 2.5°C.
Why is there so much variation in temperature over the years?
Natural variability in the system means that the amount of annual temperature change varies from year to year in each country.
While the increase in global temperature was 2.26 °C in the EU in 2022, it was 1.54 °C in 2021. France was below the EU average in 2021, while it received the highest increase in 2022.
But the long-term trend is very clear.
Temperatures have been rising for 38 years in a row in Italy
The number of consecutive years in which the global temperature was higher than the 1951-1980 average increased for each country. That affects climate scientists.
By 2022, it has changed from 12 years the UKin Sweden, Norway, Ireland and Denmark to 38 years in Italy and Malta.
Many countries experienced a drop in temperatures that ended in 1996 or 1997.
In 2022, Europe experienced its sixth year in the last decade with a global temperature increase of more than 2°C on average.
The highest rise and fall in annual temperatures in Europe
Looking at changes over the past four decades, the increase in annual temperatures exceeds 3°C in seven countries. This is especially true in Eastern European countries in 2020 when extreme heat scorches the continent.
In Russia the highest temperature was 3.69 Celsius, followed by Estonia (3.63°C) and Latvia (3.55°C).
‘Global warming time has come’: When will 1.5C be breached?
July 2023 was 1.5°C warmer than the pre-industrial average according to C3S. Based on this data, the Secretary-General of the UN Antonio Guterres he said “the time of global warming is over” and “the time of global warming has come.”
Although the global 1.5C limit has been temporarily breached, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made clear in its latest assessment report that potential breaches will be measured in years, not months.
Climate models show we could hit 1.5C throughout the year in the early 2030s. It will take about 20 years after that before scientists can say with confidence that we have blown our chances of reducing global warming by this significant margin.
This is because the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased so much that we now have a natural blanket. greenhouse gases It’s the soil that keeps the heat trapped, said Dr Burgess.
“The sooner decision makers around the world realize that they need to take action to reduce future impacts, the better the planet will be not only for our generation, but for generations to come.”
FAO statistics are based on publicly available Global Surface Temperature Change data distributed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA-GISS).
#data #Europe #warmed #years
