A lake of meltwater has formed on the tongue of the Rhone Glacier near Goms, Switzerland, on June 13, 2023. Europe is the fastest-warming continent and its temperatures are rising at roughly twice the global average, two top climate monitoring organizations reported Monday, April 22, 2024, warning of the consequences for human health, glacier melt and economic activity. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)
| Photo Credit: AP

Europe is the fastest-warming continent and its temperatures are rising at roughly twice the global average, two top climate monitoring organizations reported on April 22, warning of the consequences for human health, glacier melt and economic activity.

The U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s climate agency, Copernicus, said in a joint report that the continent has the opportunity to develop targeted strategies to speed up the transition to renewable resources like wind, solar and hydroelectric power in response to the effects of climate change.

The continent generated 43% of its electricity from renewable resources last year, up from 36% the year before, the agencies say in their European State of the Climate report for last year. More energy in Europe was generated from renewables than from fossil fuels for the second year running.

The latest five-year averages show that temperatures in Europe are now running 2.3 degrees Celsius (4.1 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, compared to 1.3 degrees Celsius higher globally, the report says — just shy of the targets under the 2015 Paris climate accord to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“Europe saw yet another year of increasing temperatures and intensifying climate extremes — including heat stress with record temperatures, wildfires, heat waves, glacier ice loss and lack of snowfall,” said Elisabeth Hamdouch, the deputy head of unit for Copernicus at the EU’s executive commission.

The report serves up a continental complement for WMO’s flagship state of the global climate report, which has been published annually for three decades, and this year came with a “red alert” warning that the world isn’t doing enough to fight the consequences of global warming.

Copernicus has reported that March marked the 10th straight month of record monthly temperatures. The average sea-surface temperature for the ocean across Europe hit its highest annual level in 2023, the Europe report said.

The European report focuses this year on the impact of high temperatures on human health, noting that deaths related to heat have risen across the continent. It said more than 150 lives were lost directly last year in connection with storms, floods and wildfires.

The cost of weather- and climate-related economic losses in 2023 were estimated at more than 13.4 billion euros (about $14.3 billion).

“Hundreds of thousands of people were affected by extreme climate events in 2023, which have been responsible for large losses at continental level, estimated to be at least in the tens of billions of euros,” said Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo.

Extreme weather fanned heat waves, wildfires, droughts and flooding, the report said. High temperatures have contributed to a loss of glacier ice on the continent, including in the Alps — which have lost about 10% of their remaining glacier ice over the last two years.

Still, the report’s authors pointed to some exceptions, such as how temperatures were below average in Scandinavia and Iceland even if the mercury was higher than average across much of the continent as a whole.

A lake of meltwater has formed on the tongue of the Rhone Glacier near Goms, Switzerland, on June 13, 2023. Europe is the fastest-warming continent and its temperatures are rising at roughly twice the global average, two top climate monitoring organizations reported Monday, April 22, 2024, warning of the consequences for human health, glacier melt and economic activity. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)
| Photo Credit: AP

Europe is the fastest-warming continent and its temperatures are rising at roughly twice the global average, two top climate monitoring organizations reported on April 22, warning of the consequences for human health, glacier melt and economic activity.

The U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s climate agency, Copernicus, said in a joint report that the continent has the opportunity to develop targeted strategies to speed up the transition to renewable resources like wind, solar and hydroelectric power in response to the effects of climate change.

The continent generated 43% of its electricity from renewable resources last year, up from 36% the year before, the agencies say in their European State of the Climate report for last year. More energy in Europe was generated from renewables than from fossil fuels for the second year running.

The latest five-year averages show that temperatures in Europe are now running 2.3 degrees Celsius (4.1 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, compared to 1.3 degrees Celsius higher globally, the report says — just shy of the targets under the 2015 Paris climate accord to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“Europe saw yet another year of increasing temperatures and intensifying climate extremes — including heat stress with record temperatures, wildfires, heat waves, glacier ice loss and lack of snowfall,” said Elisabeth Hamdouch, the deputy head of unit for Copernicus at the EU’s executive commission.

The report serves up a continental complement for WMO’s flagship state of the global climate report, which has been published annually for three decades, and this year came with a “red alert” warning that the world isn’t doing enough to fight the consequences of global warming.

Copernicus has reported that March marked the 10th straight month of record monthly temperatures. The average sea-surface temperature for the ocean across Europe hit its highest annual level in 2023, the Europe report said.

The European report focuses this year on the impact of high temperatures on human health, noting that deaths related to heat have risen across the continent. It said more than 150 lives were lost directly last year in connection with storms, floods and wildfires.

The cost of weather- and climate-related economic losses in 2023 were estimated at more than 13.4 billion euros (about $14.3 billion).

“Hundreds of thousands of people were affected by extreme climate events in 2023, which have been responsible for large losses at continental level, estimated to be at least in the tens of billions of euros,” said Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo.

Extreme weather fanned heat waves, wildfires, droughts and flooding, the report said. High temperatures have contributed to a loss of glacier ice on the continent, including in the Alps — which have lost about 10% of their remaining glacier ice over the last two years.

Still, the report’s authors pointed to some exceptions, such as how temperatures were below average in Scandinavia and Iceland even if the mercury was higher than average across much of the continent as a whole.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service said that every month since June last year has been the warmest such month on record.
| Photo Credit: AP

The world, last month, experienced the warmest February on record, with the average temperature being 1.77 degrees Celsius more than the February average for 1850-1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period, the European Union’s climate agency said on March 7.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) also said that every month since June last year has been the warmest such month on record.

Scientists attribute the exceptional warming to the combined effects of El Nino — a period of abnormal warming of surface waters in the central Pacific Ocean — and human-caused climate change.

C3S last month said the global mean temperature breached the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold for an entire year for the first time in January. A permanent breach of the 1.5-degree Celsius limit specified in the Paris Agreement, however, refers to long-term warming over many years.

Explained | How El Nino could impact the world’s weather in 2023-24

According to climate scientists, countries need to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Earth’s global surface temperature has already increased by around 1.1 degrees Celsius compared with the average in 1850-1900 — a level that has not been witnessed since 1,25,000 years, before the most recent ice age.

This warming is considered the reason behind record droughts, wildfires and floods worldwide. With an average temperature of 13.54 degrees Celsius, February 2024 was 0.12 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous warmest February in 2016, the EU’s climate agency said.

“The month was 1.77 degrees Celsius warmer than an estimate of the February average for 1850-1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period,” C3S said in an update.

The global average temperature for the last 12 months (March 2023–February 2024) is the highest on record, at 0.68 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average and 1.56 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average.

“The daily global average temperature was exceptionally high during the first half of the month, reaching two degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 levels on four consecutive days (February 8–11),” C3S scientists said.

The average global sea surface temperature (SST) for February 2024 was 21.06 degrees Celsius, the highest for any month in the dataset. The previous high was in August 2023 (20.98 degrees Celsius).

C3S director Carlo Buontempo said, “February joins the long streak of records of the last few months. As remarkable as this might appear, it is not really surprising as the continuous warming of the climate system inevitably leads to new temperature extremes.

“The climate responds to the actual concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere so, unless we manage to stabilise those, we will inevitably face new global temperature records and their consequences,” Mr. Buontempo said.

The World Meteorological Organization on Tuesday said the 2023-24 El Nino has peaked as one of the five strongest on record and will continue to impact global climate in the coming months despite a weakening trend.

The United Nations agency also said above-normal temperatures are predicted over almost all land areas between March and May. The WMO said there is about a 60% chance of El Nino persisting during March-May and an 80% likelihood of neutral conditions (neither El Nino nor La Nina) from April to June.

There is a chance of La Nina developing later in the year, but those odds are currently uncertain, it said. Scientists closely tracking the development in India have said La Nina conditions setting in by June-August could mean monsoon rains would be better this year than in 2023.

El Nino — a periodic warming of the ocean surface in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean — occurs every two to seven years on average and typically lasts nine to 12 months.

It is associated with increased rainfall in the Horn of Africa and the southern U.S., and unusually dry and warm conditions in Southeast Asia, Australia and southern Africa.