Weather, Climate: 2022 hottest year for UK, France, Spain and Switzerland as climate warms up in Europe
People sit on sun dried grass in Greenwich Park with the Maritime Museum and financial district of Canary Wharf in the background in London July 2022. Britain had 2022 its warmest year on record, official figures showed this week, the latest evidence of how the climate is Change is changing the weather in Europe. Photo / AP
Britain had its warmest year on record in 2022, official figures show, the latest evidence that climate change is altering weather in Europe.
The Met Office said Thursday the provisional annual average temperature in Britain was 10.03 degrees Celsius, the highest since comparable records began in 1884. The previous record was 9.88C, set in 2014.
Met Office scientists said human activities – mainly fossil fuel emissions – have made such warm conditions considerably more likely. Britain’s 10 hottest years on record have all been since 2003.
“The results showed that in a natural climate the record of 10°C would occur about every 500 years, while in our current climate it might only occur every three to four years,” said Nikos Christidis, Met Office researcher for climate attribution.
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Britain is not alone.
France’s average temperature in 2022 was over 14°C, making it the hottest year since weather records began in 1900.
The Swiss weather service said the annual average temperature in the Alpine state of 7.4 degrees was “by far the highest value since measurements began in 1864”.
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Spain also had its hottest year since records began in 1961, with an average daily temperature of 15.4°C, according to national weather agency Aemet. The four hottest years since records began for the southern European country have all passed since 2015.
Summer droughts and heatwaves hit much of Europe last year, with the temperature in the UK rising above 40C for the first time on record.
Norway’s Svalbard Islands in the Arctic had their warmest summer on record for more than a century. The archipelago’s average temperature for June, July and August was 7.4C, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute said.
The autumn brought more heavy rains to parts of Europe, including the mountainous Italian island of Ischia, where downpours in November triggered a massive landslide that threw cars and buildings into the sea and killed at least a dozen people.
In contrast to the US and Canada, which have been hit by bitter cold and snowstorms, much of Europe is experiencing unseasonably warm winter weather.
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In Germany, the year ended with the warmest New Year’s Eve since records began, with temperatures up to 20 °C in the south of the country.
Belarus, Belgium, Czech Republic, Latvia, Poland and the Netherlands all set national daily records on December 31 or January 1.
At the beginning of 2023, many low- and medium-altitude ski resorts in the Alps, Pyrenees and other European mountain ranges are suffering from a lack of snow.
In Bosnia, spring-like weather has thwarted even artificial snow—it’s either too warm to make it or it melts soon after it’s spat onto the slopes. Along the slopes of Bjelasnica near Sarajevo, this week’s snow accumulation was little more than a few white patches on an otherwise brown and green grassy landscape. -AP