The summer of 2021 was the hottest on record in Europe
The European Union’s Copernicus service for climate change has published its annual report on the state of the climate in Europe. It shows that the Old Continent experienced its hottest summer ever recorded in 2021, with 1°C warmer than the 1991-2020 average.
Last year’s summer also saw many temperature records, including a provisional national record of 47°C in Spain and a provisional European record of 48.8°C in Italy, the report said.
In places, the heat wave lasted two to three weeks. The widespread drought has resulted in numerous forest fires, such as in Italy, Greece and Turkey. The total burned area in July and August in the Mediterranean region exceeded 800,000 ha, details Copernicus.
On a global scale, the global concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) continued to increase in 2021. A particularly significant increase was observed for the concentration of methane in the atmosphere.
“Although the year 2021 was not considered a record warm year, neither for Europe nor for the world, the European continent has warmed by around 2°C since the pre-industrial era and the globe from 1.1 to 1.2°C”, we add.
Annual sea surface temperatures (SSTs) show “a clear long-term increase and globally the year 2021 was the 6th or 7th warmest since at least 1850”. Finally, in 2021, Arctic sea ice extent “was the 12th lowest at its September minimum.”
In addition, in July 2021, record rainfall was recorded in Belgium (39 deaths) and in western Germany. It was “a slow-moving low-pressure system moving across Europe, drawing in moist air from an unusually warm Baltic Sea,” Copernicus said.
The river flow of parts of the Meuse and Rhine catchments “has also been estimated to be the highest on record since 1991”, the report points out, noting that “the saturation of the soils before the event, as well as record rainfall, are factors that have contributed” to its extreme nature.
Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Germany, on the other hand, recorded some of the lowest annual wind speeds since at least 1979. the potential for wind power generation. Other countries in southeastern Europe, on the other hand, experienced annual wind speeds well above average.
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