In 2022, Europe faced the second hottest year on record as climate change triggered extreme weather events that destroyed crops, dried up rivers and caused thousands of deaths, according to Reuters and The Guardian, cited by News.ro.

According to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the planet is now 1.2 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels due to human-induced climate change.

Copernicus claims that over the past three decades, the temperature in Europe has more than doubled from the global average.

“We are already facing the devastating consequences of a warming world,” said C3S Deputy Director Samantha Burgess, who called for urgent action to reduce CO2 emissions and adapt to climate change.

Last summer was Europe’s hottest on record, breaking temperature records in 12 countries, including Italy, Spain and Croatia. The intense heat has caused more than 20,000 deaths in countries such as France, Germany, Spain and Great Britain.

Combined with a lack of rainfall, the heat has fueled a large-scale drought that a previous analysis classified as Europe’s worst in 500 years. Low water levels are hampering shipping along the Rhine in Germany, and a lack of rain has affected hydropower production and reduced corn and soybean yields.

The hot, dry weather has fueled intense bushfires in countries such as Spain and Slovenia, causing more emissions in the EU and UK than any other summer in 15 years.

Britain experienced its warmest year on record in 2022, its National Weather Service announced on Wednesday.

Northern and Western Europe experienced long and intense heat waves throughout the year. Much of the continent has been hit by drought, and emissions from summer fires have reached their highest level in 15 years.

Of the 27 European countries analyzed by The Guardian, 12 recorded the largest temperature anomaly ever recorded for at least one month in 2022 – Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Estonia, France, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain.

In each case, the anomalies were more than 1.9 degrees Celsius above the average temperature recorded between 1991 and 2020 for at least one month.

The greatest increase in temperature was recorded at the end of summer, as well as in October and December.

In Austria, the average temperature for the whole of October 2022 was 3.3 degrees Celsius higher than the average October temperature recorded from 1991 to 2020.

Source: Dreamstime.com