Europe has already warmed by more than 2°C during the industrial era – far faster than the world as a whole, climate experts revealed on Monday.
The continent saw its hottest ever summer in 2022 and a record loss of glaciers in the Alps.
More than 16,000 people are believed to have died because of heatwaves across Europe last year.
The findings in a report by the World Meteorological Organisation were described as “part of a pattern” of rising threats linked to climate change.
The report came on the day that Germany extended its first heat warnings of the year to almost the whole country, saying temperatures could rise as high as 34°C or 35°C. Britain faces water restrictions as Europe counts the cost of ever-increasing CO2 emissions.
Scientists are also investigating whether global warming is to blame for an anomaly in the North Atlantic in which sea surface temperatures have been at record highs for the time of year.
Human activity has warmed the Earth by about 1.1°C since the pre-industrial age, scientists say. The aim of limiting global warming to 1.5°C will be at the centre of discussions at the Cop28 summit in Dubai.
Europe has warmed more quickly than the global average and is already 2.3°C above the pre-industrial baseline, exposing it to floods, droughts, extreme heat and a loss of agricultural production.
The trend is attributed to several factors, including melting Arctic sea ice within Europe’s boundaries and the fact that land masses such as the European continent heat up faster than water.
Last summer’s heatwaves in Europe “cannot be considered a one-off occurrence or an oddity of the climate”, said Carlo Buontempo, the director of the Copernicus climate monitoring service.
“Our current understanding of the climate system and its evolution informs us that these kinds of events are part of a pattern that will make heat stress extremes more frequent and more intense across the region,” he said.
Britain saw temperatures rise above 40°C for the first time ever last July. In Germany, a lack of rainfall brought freight traffic to a standstill along the dried-up River Rhine.
Farms and orchards were hit by extreme weather in France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Austria, resulting in crop losses.
The WMO’s secretary general Petteri Taalas said the hot weather worsened “severe and widespread drought conditions” experienced in Europe last summer.
In addition, it “fuelled violent wildfires that resulted in the second largest burnt area on record, and led to thousands of heat-associated excess deaths,” he said.
The WMO’s report said:
· Europe is the fastest-warming continent in the world;
· Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland had their hottest years on record in 2022;
· Alpine glaciers shrank at the fastest rate ever, caused by warm weather and a lack of winter snow;
· Snow and rainfall were low in many areas, with a fourth dry year in a row in Spain and Portugal;
· The rate of ocean warming in Europe’s seas was more than three times the global average;
· Marine heatwaves, which can displace or even kill species, lasted for up to five months in the western Mediterranean Sea, the English Channel and the southern Arctic.
Europe's 2022 heatwaves and drought - in pictures
The current year started with 20°C conditions in Switzerland and a record 32-day streak without rainfall in France, adding to fears of a renewed summer drought.
Drought and water scarcity are regarded by a UN panel as two of the four main climate threats to Europe, along with flooding and extreme heat.
The WMO’s report said one “sign of hope for the future” was that renewable energy had overtaken natural gas for the first time as a source of electricity generation in Europe.
Many countries are expanding their wind and solar energy sectors in order to meet climate goals and reduce reliance on fossil fuel imports following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Increasing use of renewables and low-carbon energy sources is crucial to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and provides an important contribution towards climate neutrality and mitigation of human-induced climate change,” Mr Taalas said.
