Europe's alarming warmth: A call to action as temperatures soar

Temperatures in Europe are rising roughly twice as fast as the global average, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the EU's climate agency Copernicus reported on Monday. They warn of consequences that will affect people's health and glacier melting, among other things.

According to the latest data from five-year studies, current temperatures in Europe are higher by around 2.3 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial levels. This is a significantly higher rate than the global average, around 1.3 degrees Celsius. The information comes from a report by two organisations monitoring climate change.

The document's authors remind us that one of the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement was to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Elisabeth Hamdouch from Copernicus highlighted that Europe experienced another year of rising temperatures and increasing climate extremes, including heat stress with record temperatures, fires, heatwaves, reduction in glacier ice cover, and a lack of snowfall".

The report on the situation in Europe is part of a larger study by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on the state of the climate worldwide. This document has been published annually for three decades. This year's edition was released with a "red alert," aiming to draw attention to the fact that the world is not taking sufficient action to combat the consequences of global warming.

The Copernicus Agency reported that March was the tenth consecutive month of record monthly temperatures. Europe's average sea surface temperature reached its highest annual level in 2023.

The report's authors also noted an increase in heat-related deaths last year. In Europe, over 150 people died directly from extreme weather events such as storms, floods, and fires.

Economic losses related to weather and climate in 2023 were significant, amounting to over £11.1 billion. As reported, the high temperature in Europe contributed to a loss of about 10 per cent of glacier ice cover in the Alps over the last two years.

However, the authors of the report pointed out some exceptions to the general trend. Temperatures in Scandinavia and Iceland were below the European average.