A helicopter throws water on a fire in the village of Siderina, some 55 kilometers south of Athens, Greece, Monday August 16, 2021. THANASSIS STAVRAKIS/AP
More than ever, records and extremes are the norm in a warming world. Last year, Europe experienced the hottest summer on record and suffered from intense heat waves, devastating fires, but also dramatic floods. This emerges from the report on the state of the climate in Europe in 2021, published by the European Copernicus climate monitoring service on Friday 22 April to mark Earth Day.
Copernicus, whose data collected since 1950 is used by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to compile their annual report, confirms that the past seven years have been the hottest on record globally, with 2021 ranking 6th or 7th place. This situation is all the more extraordinary as last year was marked by two episodes of La Niña, a phenomenon that lowers the global temperature of the planet. Overall, since the pre-industrial era, the earth has already warmed by 1.1-1.2°C and the European continent by 2°C, due to record levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere attributed to human activities and in particular to the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas).
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Extreme events
Despite the long-term warming trend, the Old Continent nonetheless experienced a contrasting 2021. While not among the ten warmest years, sea surface temperatures in much of the Mediterranean Sea and Baltic Sea were still the highest in almost twenty years. In June and July, parts of the Baltic Sea were even more than 5 °C above normal.
The European spring was cooler than average, with parts of Europe experiencing an early onset followed by a late freeze period that impacted agriculture.
On the other hand, summer turned out to be one of all extremes. At 1°C warmer than the 1991-2020 average, it has been marked by “record temperatures, intense and prolonged heat waves and exceptional flooding,” says Freja Vamborg, coordinator of the report and senior scientist at the Copernicus Service. The Mediterranean region was particularly affected, experiencing an intense and prolonged heatwave in July-August. Many temperature records have been broken, including the European record of 48.8°C in Sicily – a figure yet to be confirmed by the WMO. In parts of Italy, Greece and Turkey, the heatwave lasted two to three weeks. This persistent heat and a severe drought have led to severe forest fires, especially in Italy, Greece and Turkey. More than 800,000 hectares went up in smoke around the Mediterranean Sea in July and August.
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