The continent is warming twice as fast as the world average, according to the latest WMO and Copernicus report
The hope is that in 2022 there was for the first time more electricity production with renewable energy than with hydrocarbons
The annual report on the climate in Europe produced by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the EU’s Copernicus service leaves two pieces of news: one good and one bad. The bad is that Europe has already exceeded, by far, the limit of 1.5ºC of warming that the Paris Agreement sets for the entire planet. And it is that in 2022 (period to which the report refers) the EU reached an average warming of 2.3ºC above the pre-industrial era, that is, much more than the set goal, which also should not be exceeded until 2100.
Europe has been warming twice the global average since the 1980s., with far-reaching repercussions on the region’s socioeconomic fabric and ecosystems. In 2022, the temperature in Europe was approximately 2.3ºC above the pre-industrial average (1850-1900)& rdquor;, which is the one usually used to measure added warming.
The report on the State of the Climate in Europe in 2022 affects the exceptional situation that the continent is experiencing, since it is the fastest warming in the world. “The year 2022 was marked by extreme heat, drought and forest fires. Sea surface temperatures around Europe hit new highs and were accompanied by marine heat waves. He Melting of glaciers occurred at an unprecedented rate& rdquor ;, says the WMO in a statement.
Renewable energies already beat hydrocarbons in the EU
However, the good news is that there is still some room for hope, thanks above all to the strong progress of clean energy on the planet, which “generated last year, for the first time, more electricity than polluting fossil fuels & rdquor;. Specifically, wind and solar energy produced 22.3% of the electricity in the European Union in 2022, more than fossil fuels (20%).
“For the first time, more electricity was generated in the EU with wind and solar power than with fossil fuels. In order to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, it is crucial to increase the use of renewable energy and low-carbon energy sources,” said WMO Secretary-General Professor Petteri Taalas.
But this optimistic note does not prevent confirming the seriousness of the current situation, which causes more deaths each year from heat waves, floods and other extreme events.
16,365 deaths in one year due to climate change
“The unprecedented heat stress experienced by Europeans in 2022 was one of the main drivers of excess weather-related deaths in Europe. Unfortunately, this cannot be considered an isolated event or a climate oddity. Our current knowledge of the climate system and its evolution tells us that these types of phenomena are part of a pattern that will make extreme cases of heat stress more frequent and more intense throughout the region,” said Dr. Carlo Buontempo, Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
The figures are eloquent. The meteorological, hydrological and climatic events registered in Europe in 2022 caused 16,365 fatalities and directly affected 156,000 people, according to the report.
About 67% of the events consisted of floods and storms, which caused most of the total economic damage, which was around US$2 billion. However, much more serious, in terms of mortality, were the heat waves, which would have caused an excess of more than 16,000 deaths.
“In 2022, many countries in western and southwestern Europe experienced the warmest year on record. The summer was the hottest on record: High temperatures exacerbated severe and widespread dry conditions, fueled violent bushfires that left the second largest area burned on record, and caused thousands of excess heat-associated deaths,” said Professor Taalas.
Fourth year in a row of drought in Spain
As for Spain, the WMO and Copernicus certify in their report that 2022 “was the fourth consecutive year of drought in the Iberian Peninsula, and the third in the mountainous regions of the Alps and the Pyrenees& rdquor ;.
“Spain’s water reserves decreased to 41.9% of their total capacity on July 26with an even higher percentage in some basins& rdquor;, he adds.
The glaciers Europe lost an ice volume of about 880 km3 between 1997 and 2022. The Alps were the most affected, with an average reduction in ice thickness of 34 meters. In 2022, glaciers in the European Alps experienced a new record mass loss in a single year, caused by very low winter snowfall amounts, a very hot summer, and accumulation of Saharan dust.
The Greenland Ice Sheet lost 5.362 ± 527 gigatonnes of ice between 1972 and 2021, contributing about 14.9 mm to the global average rise in sea level. And according to scientific assessments, it continued to lose mass throughout 2022.
The average sea surface temperatures in the entire North Atlantic area they were the warmest ever recorded and large portions of the region’s seas were affected by strong or even severe extreme marine heat waves.
Interactive website with the data: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/c805cf3053c747e7961d5ced93182993
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