Europe is warming faster than any other inhabited continent, with rising temperatures fueling increasingly severe heat waves, floods, and wildfires, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization and the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Europe is warming faster than any other inhabited continent, with rising temperatures fueling increasingly severe heat waves, floods, and wildfires, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization and the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
The Paris Agreement set a goal of halting warming at 2 degrees C, such that the average temperature across the globe over several years does not exceed this target. So far, the planet has warmed by 1.2 degrees C overall, but some regions have already surpassed the 2-degree mark, including Europe, which last year measured 2.3 degrees C warmer than in the preindustrial era, according to the report.
“In 2022, many countries in western and southwestern Europe had their warmest year on record,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement. “Summer was the hottest ever recorded.”
Read more at Yale Environment 360
Image: The 2022 temperature anomaly across Europe as compared to the average from 1991 to 2020. (Credit: C3S / ECMWF / WMO via Yale Environment 360)
