The past seven years have been the seven warmest on earth on record, according to the EU's Climate Change Service.

As in 2015 and 2018, 2021 was one of the less hot of these hottest years, as the data presented on Monday by the EU climate change service Copernicus shows for the climate year.

In Europe, however, the warmest summer since records began was measured - just before the summers of 2010 and 2018. The presumed record temperature of 48.8 degrees measured in Sicily stood out in particular.

It was 0.8 degrees above the previous European record.

In addition, 2021 was marked by extreme weather events - such as the floods that hit Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands hard in the summer.

Forest fires raged again on the west coast of the USA and Canada, not only devastating areas of land, but also massively deteriorating air quality.

"2021 was again a year of extreme temperatures, with the hottest summer in Europe, heat waves in the Mediterranean, not to mention the unprecedented high temperatures in North America," said EU Climate Change Service Director Carlo Buontempo.

"These events are an urgent reminder of the need to change the way we live, to take decisive and effective steps towards a sustainable society and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

More greenhouse gases in the atmosphere

According to the Copernicus data, the annual average temperature last year was 1.1 to 1.2 degrees higher than in the pre-industrial period. In the Glasgow Climate Pact in November, the United Nations reaffirmed its intention to stop global warming at 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial times. So far, however, the states' plans are nowhere near enough.

The nature conservation organization BUND therefore called on the Ampel-Coalition to send “a decisive signal to the EU” in the first 100 days of their government in order to strengthen climate protection on an international level.

"The immediate climate protection program announced by Federal Minister (Robert) Habeck must also take this dramatic situation into account," said BUND boss Olaf Bandt of the German press agency.

"The" wind on land law "must decisively promote the decentralized and nature-friendly expansion of renewable energies."

The Copernicus records go back to 1979.

The Climate Change Service (C3S) also uses recordings from ground stations, balloons, airplanes and satellites dating back to 1950.

As a result, the climate experts also found that the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increased again last year.

The increase was particularly large for methane.

Although this gas stays in the atmosphere for a shorter time, it is even more harmful than CO2 and is produced in agriculture, landfill or in the oil and gas industry.

"This is worrying," said Vincent-Henri Peuch, director of the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service.

More research is needed to explain the sharp rise and answer what is particularly responsible for it.