The last seven years have been the hottest ever recorded on average on the planet, according to readings by Copernicus, the European climate monitoring agency, and that Franceinfo was able to consult on Monday, January 10. The year 2021 stands as the fifth hottest year in history.
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According to Mauro Facchini, head of Earth observation at the Directorate-General for Defense Industry and Space of the European Commission, “It is a reminder of the continued rise in global temperatures and the urgent need to act.”
The other record highlighted by the surveillance service is that of summer 2021. It was the hottest ever recorded in Europe, with + 0.3 ° C, compared to the last twenty years. There was up to + 1.2 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era. The record for temperatures on the continent was broken in Sicily with 48.8 ° C and climatic catastrophes followed one another.
The last seven years were the warmest on record, with 2021 5th but with a small margin to 2015 and 2018. See in the video which regions had the largest geographical anomalies for the year. #CopernicusClimate # C3S pic.twitter.com/1sbG5cLdVg
– Copernicus ECMWF (@CopernicusECMWF) January 10, 2022
Several extreme events occurred during the summer of 2021 in Europe. The month of July was marked by very heavy rainfall in western central Europe, in a region where the soils are close to saturation, which led to severe flooding in several countries, the most affected including Germany, Belgium , Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Note that 2020, however, remains the hottest year on record in Europe. With temperatures almost 2.5 ° C above the average for recent decades.
According to data from Copernicus, the continued rise in global temperatures has resulted in a new record of CO2 concentration. Carbon emissions from forest fires around the world totaled 1,850 megatonnes, fueled in particular by the fires in Siberia. This figure is slightly higher than last year (1,750 megatonnes of carbon emissions), although the trend since 2003 has been declining.