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Low water on the Rhine in Lorchhausen: weeks of drought (picture from August)
Photo: rheinmainfoto / IMAGO
It's getting hotter in Germany: The number of hot days in Germany with an air temperature of at least 30 degrees has increased significantly in recent decades.
Averaged across Germany, it has tripled since the 1950s from around three days a year to an average of nine days a year, according to a paper on the state of the art that is to be presented on Wednesday at the Extreme Weather Congress in Hamburg.
The mean number of ice days - those days when the maximum air temperature is less than 0 degrees - has decreased from 28 days to 19 days in the same period.
On July 20 of this year, for example, a maximum daily temperature of 40.1 degrees was measured during an intense heat wave in Hamburg-Neuwiedenthal - temperatures of over 40 degrees have never been measured so far north in Central Europe.
In many regions there has been a massive accumulation of heat waves since the 1990s.
"This effect is a consequence of global warming and the resulting significant rise in temperature in Germany," write the scientists in the paper published by the congress and the German Weather Service.
»If greenhouse gas emissions remain unchecked, a further increase of five to ten hot days per year in northern Germany and ten to twenty hot days in southern Germany is expected for the period 2031 to 2060.«
The extreme weather congress takes place Wednesday to Friday in the International Maritime Museum in the Hanseatic city.
Around 100 scientists and experts will present the latest findings, as organizer and meteorologist Frank Böttcher announced.
Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens), expedition researcher Arved Fuchs and Fridays for Future activist Luisa Neubauer are also expected.
ani/dpa