Climate change underlies Europe’s rapid warming










Since 1950, the number of days of extreme heat in Europe has tripled. The number of extreme cold days has been reduced, twofold in some places, and by a factor of three in others.

Accelerating change

For years, researchers have been predicting ever-greater extremes for Europe. They have warned that rising temperatures will hit the continent both economically and in health terms, and that as the thermometer rises so will the hazards of fire and drought.

Researchers have even checked the changes in land use in the last three decades to find that political changes – the collapse of the Soviet Union and the formation of the 28-state European Union – helped damp down what still proved one of the worst heat waves ever recorded, in 2003.

But research has largely focused on what could happen if global heating continues, and fossil fuel use continues to grow. What the latest study demonstrates is that in at least one region of the globe, global heating is already happening, and at a rate faster than predicted.

And the rate of change is accelerating. The number of extreme hot days overall has trebled since 1950, but the frequency of these has doubled just between 1996 and 2018. − Climate News Network