October 2022 was the hottest month on record in Europe, the European climate change service Copernicus announced on Tuesday (November 8th), in the wake of a record summer. Average temperatures were “nearly 2°C above the 1991-2020 reference period”said in a Copernicus press release.
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The European service, which does not have comparable readings before the period 1991-2020, had already announced that the summer of 2022 had been the hottest on record (around 1.34°C above normal). “The severe consequences of climate change are now evident and we need ambitious climate action at COP27 to ensure emissions are reduced to stabilize temperatures near the 1.5 degree target. fixed by the Paris agreement”commented Samantha Burgess, Deputy Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
According to the European service, “a heat wave brought record daily temperatures to western Europe, and a record October for Austria, Switzerland and France, as well as much of Italy and Spain”.
The European continent is the fastest warming continent on Earth. Over the past 30 years, Europe has seen temperatures rise more than twice the global average, warming around +0.5°C per decade, according to a report by the World Meteorological Organization (OMM) and C3S published on 2 November.
In October, in certain parts of the continent, this abnormal heat was added, as during the summer, to a deficit of rains. “The weather was drier than average over most of southern Europe and the Caucasus”, notes Copernicus. In contrast, “over the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, parts of France and Germany, the United Kingdom and Ireland, over the northwest of Scandinavia, over much of Eastern Europe and in central Turkey, the weather was wetter than average”.