October 2022 was the warmest on record in Europe, the European Atmospheric Monitoring and Climate Change Agency Copernicus said after a summer of record temperatures.

Average temperatures were “nearly 2 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 base period,” Copernicus said in a statement.

#RENEW October temperatures in Europe were the highest on record, the European Union Climate Change Service Copernicus (C3S) said Tuesday, almost 2 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 base period. pic.twitter.com/Pe2itYgiWB

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) November 8, 2022

The European agency, which has no comparable data prior to the period 1991-2020, has already announced that the summer of 2022 was the hottest on record (1.34 degrees above normal).

“The severe impacts of climate change are now clear and we need ambitious climate action during COP27 to ensure emissions are reduced to stabilize temperatures close to the 1.5 degree target set by the Paris Agreement,” commented Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

According to the European agency, “The heat wave caused record temperatures in Western Europe and October with record temperatures in Austria, Switzerland and France, as well as in much of Italy and Spain.” The European continent is the one where temperatures rise the most on Earth.

Over the past 30 years, Europe has seen temperatures rise more than double the global average, with temperatures rising by about 0.5 degrees Celsius per decade, according to a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and C3S report released Nov. 2.

In October, in some parts of the continent, unnatural heat was added to the anombria, as it was in summer. “The weather was drier than usual in much of southern Europe and the Caucasus,” wrote Copernicus.

In contrast, “in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, parts of France and Germany, the United Kingdom and Ireland, northwest Scandinavia, much of eastern Europe and central Turkey, weather was wetter than average.”

In the rest of the world, Copernicus reports that “Canada experienced record heatwaves, and temperatures far above average were also noted in Greenland and Siberia.”

Instead, “below-average temperatures have been recorded in Australia, the eastern tip of Russia, and parts of West Antarctica.”

Since the end of the 19th century, the temperature of the Earth has increased by almost 1.2 degrees Celsius, and about half of this increase has occurred in the last 30 years. This year is expected to be the fifth or sixth warmest year on record, despite the fact that since 2020 we have been experiencing the La Niña effect, a periodic natural phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean that cools the atmosphere.

^{According to AFP, APE-MPE}