Warsaw, the capital of Poland, recorded a temperature of 18.9 degrees Celsius on January 1; greater than 5 degrees Celsius above the previous record set 30 years ago.
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A winter heatwave broke several national temperature records in Europe over the New Year’s Eve weekend, prompting meteorologists to sound the alarm and a few ski resorts were forced to shut as a consequence of lack of snow.
January temperatures reached record highs in several European countries, and national records were set in not less than seven countries.
Warsaw, the capital of Poland, recorded a temperature of 18.9 degrees Celsius (66 degrees Fahrenheit) on January 1 – greater than 5 degrees Celsius above the previous record set 30 years ago.
The northern Spanish city of Bilbao recorded 24.9 degrees Celsius on New Year’s Day – temperatures you’ll normally expect in early July. Switzerland experienced 20 degrees Celsius on Sunday.
Warm weather and light-weight snowfall forced some low-altitude ski resorts in the northern Alps and French Pyrenees to shut weeks after opening.
Amongst the European countries that recorded the hottest days on record were the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Belarus, Latvia and Lithuania.
Regional records were also broken in France, Germany and Ukraine.
Probably the most extreme event ever observed in European climatology.
Maximilian Herrera
climatologist
Meteorologists and climatologists have expressed concern about the unusually warm winter weather, saying that “too many records to countand that lots of the minimum temperatures during the night were comparable to summer ones.
“We just witnessed the warmest January day on record for a lot of countries in Europe,” Scottish meteorologist Scott Duncan said on Twitter.
“Really unprecedented in modern records,” Duncan said Sunday, adding that the intensity and extent of the heat across the region was “obscure“.
Many ski resorts in Bavaria are currently affected by an absence of snow.
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Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist who tracks global weather extremes, described the temperature records as “the most extreme event ever observed in European climatology.” in the comments The Washington Post reported on Monday, Herrera added: “Nothing is near.”
Guillaume Séchet, radio meteorologist in France, he said Europe “experienced one in every of the most amazing climate days in history” on the first day of 2023.
A record-breaking summer is followed by winter heat
Record-breaking winter heat in Europe follows the hottest summer in the region’s history and stands in stark contrast to extreme cold observed in the US in recent weeks.
Copernicus Climate Change Service, an intergovernmental agency supporting European climate policy, found that the average European temperature in August and the three-month period from June to August was the highest on record in 2022 by “significant margins”.
The severe lack of rainfall and a sequence of summer heatwaves have taken a toll on Europe’s waterways, fueling concerns about food and energy production at a time when prices have skyrocketed as a consequence of Russia’s war with Ukraine.
Last April, the world’s top climate scientists warned that the fight to maintain global warming below the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius has reached a “now or never” level.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly called for a major reduction in global fossil fuel consumption to stop a climate catastrophe.
“It’s now or never if we wish to limit global warming to 1.5°C,” said IPCC Working Group III co-chair Jim Skea in a press release accompanying the report. “Without immediate and deep emission reductions across all sectors, this can be unimaginable.”
The burning of fossil fuels – reminiscent of coal, oil and gas – is the principal driver of the climate crisis.