In many countries in western Europe, 2022 was the warmest year on record.

In France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain and other countries, the average temperature was higher than ever since records began, emphasized climate researcher Freya Vamborg from the European earth observation program Copernicus in an online press conference on Tuesday.

According to evaluations by the service, last summer was the warmest ever measured in Europe.

The full year 2022 was the second warmest in Europe since records began in 1979, according to the Copernicus report on climate extremes 2022 presented on Tuesday.

The year was only surpassed by 2020.

According to the report, heat waves combined with hardly any rain and dry soils caused periods of drought in many places in Europe, which led to problems in agriculture, shipping and the energy industry.

The extreme drought also increased the risk of wildfires - summers are estimated to have had the highest emissions from wildfires in the EU and UK in the past 15 years.

“2022 was another year of extreme climates in Europe and around the world.

These events make it clear that we are already feeling the devastating effects of our warming world,” said the service's Deputy Director Samantha Burgess.

To avoid the worst consequences, emissions urgently need to be reduced and society needs to adapt to the changing climate.

Of all the continents, Europe is warming the most

From its measurements and estimates, the EU service also deduces that temperatures in Europe have risen more than twice as much as the global average over the past 30 years and that Europe is warming the most of all continents.

This is due, among other things, to Europe's location near the higher northern latitudes, but also to effects that ensure extremely hot summers in the Mediterranean region.

Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo expects further records to be set in the coming years: “We cannot be sure whether next summer will be the hottest.

But if I had to bet, I would definitely bet on a hot one.

Cooler years will now be the exception,” said Buontempo, referring to global warming.

Globally, 2022 was the fifth warmest year according to Copernicus, and the past eight years have been the warmest on record.

On average, it was 0.3 degrees warmer last year than in the Copernicus reference period from 1991 to 2020. Compared to the pre-industrial era, this means global warming of around 1.2 degrees.

The international community of states wants to stop global warming at a maximum of 1.5 degrees in order to prevent the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.

Greenhouse gas concentration did not decrease

However, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere did not decrease last year either – on the contrary.

Both the concentration of carbon dioxide and the extremely potent greenhouse gas methane increased: on an annual average to 417 ppm (parts per million - particles of CO2 per million particles) for carbon dioxide and 1894 ppb (parts per billion - particles of methane per billion particles) for methane.

According to Copernicus, these are the highest values ​​for both gases since records began.

If you include other measurements, these are even the highest values ​​for hundreds of thousands of years.

"Greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, are the main drivers of climate change, and our measurements show that atmospheric concentrations continue to rise without showing any signs of slowing down," said Vincent-Henri Peuch, who manages the Copernicus Monitoring Service directs.

The Copernicus records go back to 1979.

The climate change service also uses data from ground stations, balloons, airplanes and satellites going back to 1950.

Data on temperatures, sea ice cover and other aspects are published monthly using computer analysis.