Europe has had the hottest year on record. According to the EU climate service Copernicus, the average temperature was 1.6 degrees higher than average and at least 0.4 degrees higher than in the previous five hottest years.
Copernicus calls the warm winter period in 2020 particularly striking. Then the temperatures were 3.4 degrees above the average for the period 1981-2010 and 1.4 degrees above the previous warmest winter.
“Temperatures are rising in Europe in all seasons,” said researcher Freja Vamborg. Vamborg told reporters that outside of Europe, the Arctic, in particular, has had a “spectacular year”.
There, the surface temperature last year was 2.2 degrees above the 1981-2010 average and about 3 degrees higher than in the pre-industrial period. Many forest fires broke out in Siberia.
2020 is also in the top three hottest years for the world as a whole, Copernicus says. UN experts have already established this week. Then UN chief Antonio Guterres warned that the world is “on the brink of collapse”.