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Edersee near Waldeck in late summer 2022: completely dried up
Photo: Jochen Tack / IMAGO
It's getting hotter in Germany - and according to the German Weather Service (DWD), the warming trend that has been accelerating for decades will continue.
"We are now experiencing heat periods and intensities that we would not have expected from the climate models for a few decades," said Andreas Becker, head of the DWD's climate monitoring department, on Monday on the occasion of the final climate balance for the past year.
"Since 1881 we have had an increase in the annual mean temperature in Germany of 1.7 degrees," said Becker.
This increase can only be explained by man-made climate change.
"Since the early 1970s, this warming trend has accelerated significantly, and there is no reason to expect it to slow down in the next few years."
2022 was too warm and too dry
According to the final balance sheet, 2022 was the sunniest year and, together with 2018, the warmest year in Germany since systematic weather records began in 1881. The mean annual temperature was 10.5 degrees.
Before 2014, there was never an average annual temperature of more than 10 degrees in Germany.
The previous year was once again not only too warm, but also significantly too dry - with sometimes serious effects on agriculture and forests (you can find an overview of regional differences in autumn weather here).
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According to the DWD, every ten-year period in Germany has been warmer than the previous one since the 1960s.
The years 2013 to 2022 were therefore the warmest ten-year period since the start of the analysis.
"All of this must be a strong motivation for us to drive climate protection forward much more in Germany and globally, because adaptation is much more expensive and even here only to a limited extent," emphasized Becker.
ani/dpa