Mercurybreaking year in Europe and the Arctic

BRUSSELS: Europe had its hottest year on record last year, while the Arctic endured a summer of extreme wildfires partly because of low snow cover as climate change impacts intensified, the European Union’s observation service said yesterday.

As world leaders prepared to brandish their plans to fight climate change at a USled summit today, EU scientists issued a stark reminder that the effects of a warmer world were already here.

Europe’s average annual temperature in 2020 was the highest on record and at least 0.4degC above the next five warmest years — all of which took place in the last decade, the Copernicus Earth observation service said.

‘‘Temperatures are increasing in all seasons in Europe,’’ Copernicus senior scientist Freja Vamborg said.

It was the hottest winter on record, at 3.4degC above the average European winter temperature between 1981 and 2020. Weather is more variable in winter, so extreme temperatures tend to play out most starkly in that season.

It was also Europe’s warmest autumn, while summer heatwaves were not as intense or prolonged as in recent years, despite pockets of recordbreaking heat in places including Scandinavia and France.

The Arctic recorded a ‘‘spectacular year’’, Vamborg said. The average temperature in Arctic Siberia last year broke records by a large margin at 4.3degC above the 19812020 average.