Last year in Europe one of the wetest and record -breaking year

Into The hottest year in the history of measurements globally Europe has suffered the most comprehensive floods after 2013. Storms and floods have taken more than 300 human lives, affected almost half a million Europeans and caused at least 18 billion euros in economic damage.

Last year, when the global average temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius for the first time in the history of measurements relative to the pre -industrial level, it was one of the ten wetest years after 1950 in Europe. Almost a third of rivers flooded. The most affected were the Spanish provinces of Valencia and Central and Eastern Europe, according to the joint report of the Climate Change Service yesterday in the European Union program for observing Copernicus (C3S) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

In the storm Boris in September last year, in just five days, it fell by almost three months of rain. The storm has caused extensive floods and damage in eight countries of Central and Eastern Europe. A month later, strong storms triggered by warm and humid air over the Mediterranean Sea caused torrential rainfall over Spain, then ravaged the eastern landscape of Valencia.

The warmest sea, the largest melting of ice

In most Western Europe, last year it was more moist than usual, and the eastern parts of the continent were, on average, drier and warmer. The contrast between the East and the West is not directly related to climate change, but to opposite pressure systems that have affected cloud coverage and moisture transmission through different parts of the continent. But the storms that devastated across Europe last year were « probably worse due to a warmer atmosphere that holds more moisture, » said the strategic manager for the climate at the European Center for Medium Weather forecasts Samantha Burgess. « With the warming of the climate, there will be more extreme weather events, » she stressed the warning repeatedly.

Last year, it was the warmest in the history of measurements in Europe, with the second largest number of days with heat stress and tropical nights, the report shows. The areas where daily temperatures are below freezing are shrinking. Last year, the volume of areas where the frost was less than 90 days was the largest in the history of measurements. The sea temperature at the European region and the Mediterranean has been the highest ever. Record warm were also European lakes. Glaciers in Scandinavia and Svalbard have lost the maximum mass in one year so far, even the largest in any glacial region globally. It is encouraging, however, that the largest proportion of electricity from renewable sources so far has been produced last year, 45 %.

Floods in the Czech Republic September last year. Photo: Radek Mica/AFP

Only half of the cities has the plans of adjustment

Europe is the fastest heating continent, which is partly due to the proportion of European land in the Arctic, the region that warms up the fastest on Earth, and the increasing summer heat waves. Since the 1980s, Europe has been warming twice as fast than the global average. The main cause of climate warming is the increase in greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere, which is caused by people with various activities, especially by burning fossil fuels, shrinking forests and livestock.

Climate change not only causes temperatures rising, and the indirect effect of additional heat, which is caught in the atmosphere and seas, is also important. Warmer seas mean greater evaporation, the warmer atmosphere can retain more moisture that delivers energy into storms and cause heavy rainfall and flooding.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), which is the leading international organization for scientific climate change, predicts that extreme rainfall and flooding will be increasing especially in Europe, as the planet continues to heat up. At the same time, heat waves are increasing and more severe. Southern Europe is pursuing extensive droughts.

The CS3 and WMO report notes that only about half of European cities have established national adjustment plans for better coping with climate change. This is an improvement in 2018, when only about a quarter of cities have such plans.