Poland’s capital Warsaw recorded a temperature of 18.9 °C on January 1; 5°C higher than the previous record of 30 years ago.
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A winter heatwave broke several national temperature records across Europe over the New Year’s weekend, prompting meteorologists to sound the alarm, while some ski resorts were forced to close due to an absence of snow.
January temperatures reached their highest ever in several European states, with national records being set in at least seven countries.
The Polish capital Warsaw recorded a temperature of 18.9 °C (66 °F) on 1 January – 5 °C higher than the previous record from 30 years ago.
The northern Spanish city of Bilbao recorded 24.9°C on New Year’s Day – temperatures that can typically be expected in early July. Switzerland experienced 20°C on Sunday.
Warm weather and low snowfall forced some low-altitude ski resorts in the northern Alps and French Pyrenees to close weeks after opening.
The European countries that recorded their hottest days in history were the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Belarus, Latvia and Lithuania.
Regional records were also broken in France, Germany and Ukraine.
The most extreme event ever observed in European climate science.
Maximiliano Herrera
climatologist
Meteorologists and climatologists expressed concern over the unseasonably warm winter weather, saying that “too many records to count“And that many of the overnight minimum temperatures were on par with summer.
“We’ve just had the hottest January day ever recorded for many countries in Europe,” Scottish meteorologist Scott Duncan said via Twitter.
“The intensity and extent of the heatwave across the region is truly unprecedented in the modern record,” Duncan said on Sunday.hard to understand,
Many ski resorts in Bavaria are currently suffering from a lack of snow.
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Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist who tracks global weather extremes, described the temperature record as “the most extreme event European climate science has ever seen”. in the comments Reported by The Washington Post On Monday, Herrera said, “Nothing even close to it.”
Guillaume Séchet, a broadcast meteorologist in France, Said Europe “experienced one of the most incredible climate days in history” on the first day of 2023.
Winter heat follows record-breaking heat
Record-breaking winter heat in Europe comes after the region’s warmest summer on record and vice versa Extreme cold snap seen in US in recent weeks,
Copernicus Climate Change Service, an intergovernmental agency that supports European climate policy, found The average European temperature for August and for the June-August three-month period was the highest on record in 2022 by a “substantial margin”.
Severe lack of rainfall and a sequence of summer heat waves Took a Visible Toll on European WaterwaysAt a time when Russia’s war with Ukraine was causing prices to skyrocket, fueling fears over food and energy production.
Last April, the world’s top climate scientists warning The fight to keep global warming below the critical threshold of 1.5°C has reached “now or never” territory.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly called for a drastic reduction in global fossil fuel use to prevent climate change.
“If we are to limit global warming to 1.5°C, it is now or never,” Jim Skea, co-chair of the IPCC Working Group III, said in a statement accompanying the report. “Without immediate and deep emissions cuts across all sectors, this will be impossible.”
The burning of fossil fuels – such as coal, oil and gas – is the main driver of the climate emergency.