And as more and more low-altitude European ski resorts struggle to provide enough snow cover for their early-season visitors, WMO point at widely accepted peer-reviewed scientific data from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that the frequency of cold spells and frost days “will decrease”.
The IPCC said: “Strong declines in glacier numbers, permafrost, snow cover and seasonality of snow at high latitudes/altitudes have been observed and will continue into a warming world”.
According to the United Nations agency, New Year’s temperatures soar above 20 degrees Celsius (C) in many European countries, even in Central Europe.
The WMO said national and multiple local temperature records for December and January were also broken in several countries, from southern Spain to parts of eastern and northern Europe.
Temperatures rise in Spain
At Spain’s Bilbao Airport, the temperature was 25.1C on January 1 smash The previous all-time record was set 12 months earlier, by 0.7C.
And in the eastern French city of Besançon, which is usually cold this time of year, temperatures hit a new all-time high of 18.6 degrees on New Year’s Day, 1.8 degrees Celsius on the previous record, dating from January 1918.
In the German city of Dresden, the record 17.7 degrees Celsius on New Year’s Eve 1961 was left behind by the 19.4 degrees Celsius figure taken on December 31, 2022, just like the residents of Warsaw Poland welcomes the new year with temperatures up to 18.9 degrees Celsius, one a staggering 5.1C . higher than the previous all-time record in January, from 1993.
Farther north, on the Danish island of Lolland, 2023 begins with a new high of 12.6 degrees Celsius, surpassing the record of 12.4 degrees Celsius set in 2005.
High and low
The WMO attributed the warm weather in Europe to the high-pressure area over the Mediterranean region encountering the Atlantic low-pressure system.
Their interaction “caused a strong southwesterly wind that carried warm air from northwest Africa to mid-latitudes,” the UN agency explained, adding that the air current This hotter-than-normal gas “was further warmed as it passed through the North Atlantic, due to higher-than-normal sea surface temperatures”.
Highlighting the effect of sea warming on weather patterns, the WMO noted that in the eastern North Atlantic, sea surface temperatures were 1°C to 2°C above normal and “near the coast”. the Iberian Sea, even higher.”
All of this caused record heat in several European countries on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.
In recent years, Bosnia and Herzegovina in Eastern Europe has been affected by extreme weather related to climate change, from heavy rainfall to heat waves.
Signs of time
WMO warns that extreme weather in Europe is expected to continue to increase. analysis published with “high confidence” by the influential United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Regardless of the magnitude of future global warming, temperatures will increase in all European regions at a rate that exceeds the global average temperature change, similar to those observed by the IPCC, the IPCC said. before”.
Follow IPCC Regional Fact Sheet for Europe“The frequency and intensity of extreme heat waves, including marine heatwaves, have increased in recent decades and are projected to continue to increase regardless of greenhouse gas emission scenarios such as how”.
The panel’s experts further warned that “critical thresholds” for the environment and people are “expected to be exceeded for global warming of 2C or more”.
