OUR climate crisis had a “terrifying” impact on Europe in 2022, with more 20,000 people die from intense heat and drought sweep crops, according to a new European Union report.

Its authors climate change service Copernicus report report that many farmers are already taking the devastating effects of the drought for granted this year as well, while the only way to limit the damage from global warming is to cut carbon emissions immediately.

As noted in the report, due to the ubiquitous spread of heat waves In 2022, Europe experienced the second hottest summer on record, after 2020.

Citizens of southern Europe experienced 70-100 days of heat stress when temperatures exceeded 32 degrees Celsius, while the UK first experienced the 40s. It is noted that one of the regions of Europe that is experiencing the drought and its consequences with particular force is Spain and especially Catalonia, which suffer from water shortages and, in at least one city with a population of more than 3,500 people, water is delivered in barrels from other places. . .

The heat, combined with low rainfall, caused a drought that it affected more than a third of the Old Continentmaking last year one of the driest years on record, the report says.

The discharge of two thirds of European rivers was below average.

Carbon dioxide emissions from summer fires due to high temperatures were the highest in 15 years.

Alpine glaciers have lost a record amount of ice.

One of the few positive outcomes described in the report is that Europe accepted it. more solar radiation over the last forty years due to limited cloud cover which has allowed above average solar production.

“The conclusions are appalling, I must say, but I think we need to know the truth. We have more and more extreme weather events in Europe. Each of us can see it,” says Mauro Facchini, head of Earth observation at the European Commission.

“We are really going into uncharted territory. The report should be seen as yet another warning to accelerate our efforts to reduce carbon emissions, which have also reached record levels by 2022,” warns Carlo Buodembo, Director of C3S.

The same report, which also looked at the situation in the Arctic, mentioned that Greenland recorded a record melt of its ice during an unprecedented heat wave last September, when the mercury column exceeded the region’s average temperature by eight degrees Celsius.

Source: Guardian