Last year was the hottest in history across Europe as temperature records were shattered by a series of extreme heatwaves across the continent, the European Union’s satellite monitoring surface said Wednesday.
In its annual report on the state of the climate, the EU’s Copernicus climate change Service (C3S) said that 11 of the continent’s 12 warmest years on record are since 2000 as greenhouse gas rise.
Warm conditions and summer heatwaves contributed to widespread drought across southern Europe, whereas areas of the Arctic were getting ready to one-degree Celsius hotter than a typical year, it said.
Overall, temperatures across Europe are 2C hotter throughout the last 5 years than they were within the latter half the 19th Century, C3S’s information showed.
2019 globally was second-hottest only to 2016, a year that experienced an exceptionally strong El Nino warming event.
C3S director Carlo Buontempo said that whereas 2019 was Europe’s hottest year on record, it had been important to focus on the continent’s long-term heating.
