U.K., France, Switzerland, Spain had their hottest years ever
LONDON — Britain had its hottest year on record in 2022, official figures show, the latest evidence that climate change is transforming Europe’s weather.
The U.K.’s Met Office weather agency said Thursday that the provisional annual average temperature was 50 degrees, the highest since comparable data began to be compiled in 1884. The previous record was 49.8 degrees, set in 2014.
Met Office scientists said human activity — primarily fossil fuel emissions — has made warm conditions vastly more likely. Britain’s 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 2003.
“The results showed that recording [50 degrees] in a natural climate would occur around once every 500 years, whereas in our current climate, it could be as frequently as once every three to four years,” said Met Office scientist Nikos Christidis.
Britain is not alone. The average temperature last year in France was above 57.2 degrees, making it the hottest year since weather readings began there in 1900. Switzerland’s meteorological service said that nation’s annual average temperature of 45.3 degrees was “by far the highest value since measurements began in 1864.” Spain also had its hottest year since records started in 1961, according to national weather agency Aemet, with an average daily temperature of 59.7 degrees; the four hottest years on record for the country have all come since 2015.
Last year saw summer drought and heat waves across much of Europe, with the temperature in Britain rising above 104 degrees for the first time on record.
Norway’s Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic had its warmest summer in more than a century of recordkeeping, with the average temperature for June, July and August at 45.3 degrees, the Norwegian Meteorological Institute said.
Autumn brought heavy rain in parts of Europe, including Italy’s mountainous island of Ischia, where downpours in November triggered a massive landslide that pushed cars and buildings into the sea and killed at least a dozen people.
Unlike the U.S. and Canada, which have been hit by bitter cold and snowstorms, much of Europe is experiencing unseasonably warm winter weather.
In Germany, the year ended with the warmest New Year’s Eve on record, with temperatures reaching 68 degrees in the south of the country. Belarus, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Poland and the Netherlands all set national record daily highs for Dec. 31 or Jan. 1.
As 2023 begins, many low- and medium-altitude ski resorts in the Alps, the Pyrenees and other European mountain ranges are experiencing a lack of snow.
In Bosnia, spring-like weather has foiled even artificial snow — either it’s too warm to make it, or it melts soon after being spat out onto ski slopes. Along the slopes in Bjelasnica near Sarajevo on Wednesday, snow accumulation amounted to little more than several patches on an otherwise grassy landscape.