The year 2022 showed once again in Europe how fast the climate crisis is progressing. According to that annual report on the state of the European climate, which the World Weather Organization WMO and the EU climate service Copernicus published on Monday, it has already become 2.3 degrees Celsius warmer than in pre-industrial times in Europe. That is roughly twice the global warming.
The consequences could be seen across the continent over the past year. In many countries in western and south-western Europe, 2022 was the warmest year ever measured. Viewed across Europe, the year was in second to fourth place, depending on the data set used. In addition, there was too little precipitation over large parts of the continent, with snow in winter 21/22 in particular being scarce. In the summer, this led to the highest loss of glacier ice ever recorded in the Alps: since 1997, the ice cover has thinned by an average of 34 meters.
The widespread droughts contributed to the fact that 2022 was the second largest forest fire area to date and also caused problems for agriculture. “Because of the ongoing mega drought in Spain, water reserves are now so low that many farmers are unable to grow crops, which is affecting food prices,” says Hannah Cloke, a hydrologist at the University of Reading. “The evidence is clear that the effects of climate disruption on our own society are increasing.”
The seas in and around Europe are also warming up much more than the global average
In the parts of the North Atlantic that the WMO includes in the Europe region, surface temperatures were higher than ever before, and large parts of the ocean were affected by strong to extreme marine heat waves. The fact that Europe has warmed so much is not only due to the fact that land masses are generally heating up faster: According to the report, the sea surfaces in Europe are also warming three times faster than the global average, especially in the eastern Mediterranean, the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and in the southern Arctic.
16,000 people died in 2022 as a result of weather and climate events in the region, almost all due to summer heat waves, which were the warmest on record in Europe. However, some areas were also affected by unusually cold temperatures and heavy snowfall, such as Turkey, Greece and Montenegro. But the authors also highlight positive developments: In 2022, a good 22 percent of electricity was generated from wind and sun, for the first time more than from fossil gases.
Experts praise the quality of the data collected. “In many ways, Europe has the best analytical view of the consequences of climate change, which makes what’s being observed now all the more chilling,” says David Reay, a climate researcher at the University of Edinburgh.