Western Europe recorded its hottest June and July on record.
Western Europe has just experienced the hottest June and July on record. The European Union's Copernicus climate change monitoring agency said on August 10th that climate change is triggering an extreme summer with heatwaves, droughts, and widespread wildfires across the region.
According to a report by Copernicus, the average temperature in Western Europe during the first two months of summer reached 21.62 degrees Celsius, officially breaking the record for the same period in 2022. Europe is now the fastest-warming continent in the world. Soil moisture has dropped to alarmingly low levels compared to the severe drought of 2022.
The prolonged drought has caused water levels in major rivers such as the Seine, Rhine, and Danube to drop unusually low, severely impacting waterway traffic, irrigation, and energy production in many countries.
Samantha Burgess, a representative of the Copernicus operating agency, emphasized that this is clear evidence that climate change is exacerbating weather extremes, with heatwaves and droughts increasingly forming a vicious cycle. Extreme hot and dry weather conditions also create the ideal environment for the outbreak of historic wildfires in France, Spain, and North America.
Not only on land, but the global oceans are also suffering severe impacts. The average global sea surface temperature in July reached 20.96 degrees Celsius, breaking the record of 2023.
Carlo Buontempo, Director of Copernicus, believes that the strong development of the El Niño phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean, combined with the enormous amount of greenhouse gases emitted by humans, is the driving force behind the peak temperatures.
Globally, this past July was the second hottest July on record, with temperatures 1.47 degrees Celsius higher than the pre-industrial average. Climate experts warn that the world is likely to set another global temperature record by the end of this year or early 2027.
The warming of the oceans—which act as climate regulators—will have catastrophic consequences, fueling major storms and threatening the survival of coral reefs worldwide.
