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Sunrise in Hamburg in August
Photo: Daniel Bockwoldt / dpa
According to preliminary results, the past year is the second warmest on record.
This was announced by the German Weather Service (DWD) after initial evaluations in Offenbach.
The average temperature was 10.4 degrees.
So 2020 is just behind the record year 2018, in which the mean temperature was 10.5 degrees.
In the following places are 2019 and 2014 with 10.3 degrees each.
It is the tenth year in a row that the average temperature has exceeded the long-term mean.
»The very warm year 2020 cannot leave us indifferent.
The scientific climate facts of the national weather service are alarming.
Climate protection is the order of the day.
We have to act now, ”said Tobias Fuchs, DWD's Climate Director.
2020 was also very sunny and the third dry year in a row.
In the spring in particular, there was no precipitation and regionally kept the soil dry and dusty into the summer.
In some communities, water was even running out.
According to the weather service, only about half of the usual amount of rain fell between March and May on a Germany-wide average.
The DWD already rated last winter as "extremely mild" and as the second warmest since records began in 1881 - there was no trace of ice and snow in many places in Germany.
The spring was very sunny and too warm, especially April.
The summer was changeable, but still exceeded the temperature values of the long-term average.
The precipitation target was almost reached, but the rain was distributed very unevenly regionally.
Autumn was the fourth warmest ever, and too dry.
World Weather Organization urges climate protection
The temperature average in 2020 was 2.2 degrees above the internationally valid reference period 1961 to 1990. Compared to the reference period 1981 to 2010, the deviation was 1.5 degrees.
Except for May, all months were too warm, according to the DWD.
The trend is also evident internationally: In an initial assessment at the beginning of December, the World Weather Organization (WMO) assumed one of the three warmest years since temperature records began in the middle of the 19th century.
The record year so far is 2016, with an annual average plus of 1.2 degrees.
For Europe, the average temperature in the first ten months was even higher than ever before.
The corona pandemic should not be an excuse to let up on climate change, warned the WMO.
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