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)