The footprints of climate change in Europe: floods, droughts, fires and record temperatures

The European continent is far from outside the process of human-induced climate change that affects the planet.

And this crisis left an obvious trail in 2021 in the form of floods, droughts, fires and record temperatures in Europe, according to the annual balance published this Friday by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a scientific program of the European Commission.

Average temperatures on the continent are already 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels (the average for the period between 1850 and 1900 is taken as a reference) and last summer was the warmest ever recorded in Europe.

Parallel to the extreme weather events that occurred inside and outside the European borders,

On the planet as a whole, the temperature of the surface (including land and sea areas) was between 1.1 and 1.2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, already close to the first level of safety established by the Agreement on Paris: 1.5 degrees.

And 2021 is among the seven warmest years on record since 1850, according to the Copernicus report.

This confirms the warming trend that the planet is experiencing: the last seven years are the seven years with the highest average temperatures since those records began in the mid-19th century.

The increase in temperatures is associated with melting ice and, in turn, with the rise in sea level: since 1993 the average rise has been 9 centimeters, Copernicus recalls.

But climate change does not only mean an increase in average temperatures, but is also linked to the growth in the number and intensity of extreme weather events, as the IPCC also highlighted in another of its recent reports.

And last summer in Europe was plagued by this type of event, as broken down in the climate balance, the fifth carried out by this Commission program.

Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, has pointed precisely in that direction: “2021 was a year of extremes that included the hottest summer in Europe, heat waves in the Mediterranean, floods and wind droughts in Western Europe. ”.

"Accurate climate information is more important than ever to help us make informed decisions," added this expert.

The Mediterranean region suffered during the summer an intense heat wave, lack of rain and a succession of forest fires that reached especially intense levels in Italy, Greece and Turkey.

In total, more than 800,000 hectares burned during July and August alone in the Mediterranean region, according to data from Copernicus, which also monitors this type of fire.

In addition, on the Italian island of Sicily, 48.8 degrees Celsius were recorded, which is the highest temperature record that has been documented in Europe.

Map of forest fires in Europe and the Mediterranean region during 2021.COPERNICUS

Meanwhile, during the month of July, historic floods were experienced in central Europe that caused serious damage in Belgium and Germany.

As a whole, the average temperature in Europe last summer was 1 degree above normal (taking the period between 1990 and 2020 as a reference).

However, as the spring was cooler than average, this ultimately meant that 2021 was not among the five warmest years on record so far.

Apart from the interannual variations, which are not very large, the balance that Copernicus presented this Friday makes clear that global warming trend that is accentuating during this last decade and that will continue during the next ones, no matter what happens.

What human beings can still aspire to is to leave the increase in temperature within the margins established by the Paris Agreement, between 1.5 and 2 degrees of increase with respect to pre-industrial levels, although for that they need drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

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