The summer was again too warm this year. According to the provisional balance of the German Weather Service (DWD), it joins the series of too warm summers in Germany. With an average temperature of 18.6 degrees Celsius, this year’s summer was 2.3 degrees above the internationally valid reference period from 1961 to 1990, the DWD reported on Wednesday. The values for the months of June to August were evaluated at around 2000 measuring stations.
Compared to the current and warmer reference period from 1991 to 2020, the deviation was exactly one degree Celsius. “Overly warm summers have been measured in Germany for 27 years now,” said DWD spokesman Uwe Kirsche. “Again we can experience climate change live.”
According to DWD information, the summer this year was characterized by large fluctuations: there was tropical heat, but also early autumn fresh temperatures. On June 3rd, in Sohland on the Spree, the nationwide summer low was recorded at minus 0.7 degrees Celsius. On July 15, on the other hand, the people in Möhrendorf-Kleinseebach in Bavaria started sweating at 38.8 degrees. At around 270 liters per square meter, there was a good tenth more precipitation this summer than the average for the reference period 1961 to 1990. Up to 600 liters of precipitation per square meter were measured directly on the Alps over the course of the three months.
In Germany, the temperatures were comparatively mild this summer, but the global forecast is much more extreme: In July, the world experienced the hottest month since weather records began. Heat waves swept across large parts of North America, Asia and Europe, impacting the health of millions of people. Forest fires are raging in Canada and Greece, favored by drought and high temperatures. The oceans are also exceptionally hot, and marine heat waves in the Atlantic and Mediterranean threaten coral reefs and other ecosystems.
The United Nations describes climate change as long-term changes in temperatures and weather patterns that have been “mainly due to human activity” since the 19th century – according to the UN, these are primarily the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas.