Seas and fires, the fever of Europe: «It is the continent that is warming the most»

Red alert for Europe. It is the continent that is warming the fastest: 1°C above the global average and more than 2.6°C compared to pre-industrial levels. Alpine glaciers are losing volume rapidly, the seas are “boiling”, fires have devoured an area the size of Berlin, London and Paris combined in 2023; Extreme events strike with ever greater intensity and frequency, putting citizens’ health at risk. This is the less than comforting picture outlined by the latest report EU climate monitoring service, Copernicus, released Monday, coinciding with Earth Day. A single positive element emerges: the record percentage of electricity production from renewable sources (43%), which for the second consecutive year exceeded that from fossil fuels.

The great fire

«In 2023, Europe witnessed the largest fire ever recorded, one of the wettest years, severe marine heat waves and devastating widespread floods», summarizes Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service «We are already living in a climate fundamentally different from that in which our civilization evolved.” Adapting is a necessary path, but it won’t be easy. “We expect stronger oscillations between hot, dry and humid conditions,” explains Richard Allen, a climatologist at the University of Reading. “It is difficult to prepare infrastructure and social life for such unpredictable weather conditions.”

Seas never so warm

The most worrying data concerns the increase in temperatures in Europe, approximately double the global average: 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded on the continent, with a record number of days with “extreme heat stress”. The impact on human health is clear: over the last twenty years, heat-related mortality has increased by 30% and deaths are estimated to have increased in 94% of monitored European regions.

Boiling oceans

The “fever” of the seas is also a record. Scientists are particularly concerned by the increase in surface temperatures of the Atlantic Ocean, west of Ireland and around the United Kingdom, with peaks up to 5°C above average. The alteration of the Atlantic circulation could further aggravate the oscillation of climate and temperatures in Europe.

Precipitation increases

Precipitation is also increasing, 7% more than the average, but distributed unequally across the continent and very concentrated, as demonstrated by the floods in Italy, Slovenia and Greece. On the other hand, much of Europe has recorded a lower than average number of snow days and in the Alps the lack of snow combined with the strong melting caused by heat waves continues to have serious consequences on the glaciers, which in just two years have lost around 10% of their residual volume.

April 22, 2024

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