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Earth

Europe Warming Twice As Fast As Rest of the World, New Report Reveals 161

Posted by BeauHD from the concerning-trends dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Space.com: The European continent is bearing the brunt of climate change, warming at a rate that is twice as fast as the global average, a new report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) found. The report analyzed 30 years' worth of data from 1991 onwards, revealing a disconcerting trend of speedy warming across Europe that is faster than the warming experienced by any other continent. Average temperatures in Europe were rising at a rate of 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade over the studied period, reaching an overall average of 2.2 degrees C (4 degrees F) above pre-industrial levels. That is way above the 1.5 degree C (2.7 degrees F) limit set by the international climatology community with the goal of minimizing devastating environmental effects of climate change.

The report, which was compiled in cooperation with the European Earth-observation program Copernicus, stated that Europeans are already feeling the pinch of this warming. According to estimates, the summer of 2022 was the driest in 500 years, with widespread water shortage and wildfires affecting even those nations that are usually accustomed to wetter summers. Alpine glaciers lost about one hundred feet (30 meters) in ice thickness from 1997 to 2021 as a result of the warming, according to the report. In 2021 alone, weather related disasters, mostly related to floods and storms, caused damages worth $50 billion across all European countries.

Scientists don't know exactly why Europe is warming so fast, Samantha Burgess, deputy director for climate change services at Copernicus told Space.com in a previous interview. The fast-paced warming may have something to do with the proximity of the Arctic, which is by far the world's fastest warming region. "We know that the Arctic is warming about three times faster than the global average rate," Burgess told Space.com last year. "It's already 3 degrees C [5.4 degrees F] warmer than in the pre-industrial times. It is quite complicated to unpick the scientific reasons behind why the warming is happening so much faster there." [...] The new WMO report states that regardless of emission reduction efforts, temperatures in all regions of Europe will continue to rise at a rate higher than the global average.
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Europe Warming Twice As Fast As Rest of the World, New Report Reveals More

Europe Warming Twice As Fast As Rest of the World, New Report Reveals

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  • As usual... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Friday November 04, 2022 @08:15AM (#63023953) Homepage

    As usual: The people who make the most effort to do the right thing are the ones who get shafted first.

    • Re:As usual... (Score:4, Informative)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Friday November 04, 2022 @09:48AM (#63024229)

      As usual: The people who make the most effort to do the right thing are the ones who get shafted first.

      Much of Europe will benefit from longer growing seasons and warmer winters. So I wouldn't say they are getting "shafted".

      The real harm from global warming will fall on arid tropical and semi-tropical countries.

      But none of this is unexpected. Areas closer to the poles are warming much faster than the rest of the planet, and Europe is further north than most people realize. NYC is considered a northern city in America, yet it is at the same latitude as Madrid, Spain. London is as far north as Newfoundland.

      • Longer grow cycles are only useful if you don't also screw up the water cycle and wind up with droughts, which is what's been happening everywhere, including Europe. And the food shortages caused by the droughts are likely to lead to global instability and overall increases in food prices.

        This isn't the 1700s, the world market is global...

        Europe's gonna get shafted like everyone else. There's no "winners and losers" here. It's all losers. We're a global civilization clinging to nationalism that was

        • Longer grow cycles are only useful if you don't also screw up the water cycle and wind up with droughts,

          The warming in Europe is highly dependent on latitude. Norway and Finland are warming much faster than Spain and Italy.

          If you tell Scandinavians that global warming will mean less rain, they will jump for joy and go back to burning coal.*

          There's no "winners and losers" here. It's all losers.

          Of course. But some will lose much more than others. People in Niger will starve. Norwegians will have to buy more sunscreen.

          *Not really.

    • As usual: The people who make the most effort to do the right thing are the ones who get shafted first.

      By which you mean the continent that's been polluting longer than any other, still has the second highest emissions per capita of any continent? The continent which invented the industrial revolution that caused global warming, which has almost certainly pumped out more greenhouse gasses over the centuries than any other despite a much smaller population than Asia?

    • The people on the equator?

    • Cumulative, Europe still produced more than everyone else except perhaps the US and China

    • You have to be kidding. Europe and China have been burning lots of coal since before christ.

  • Much of Europe is pretty far North (Score:5, Informative)

    by HiThere ( 15173 ) <charleshixsn.earthlink@net> on Friday November 04, 2022 @08:29AM (#63023999)

    The areas closer to the poles are generally warming faster than the areas further from the poles. Much of Europe is pretty far North. Just looking at a map, Paris seems to be about as far North as Boston.

    So the title is misleading, and the article isn't surprising.

  • x is warming twice as rest of the world (Score:4, Insightful)

    by HaaPoo ( 696098 ) on Friday November 04, 2022 @08:30AM (#63024007)
    X is every country in the world, google that and you will see. Global warming is real, but please stop the click baits. https://globalnews.ca/news/511... [globalnews.ca] https://andrewromanviews.blog/... [andrewromanviews.blog] https://earth.org/arctic-warmi... [earth.org] .......

    • Telling the world to stop with the clickbait is like trying to tell the professional fisherman to stop fishing when they're catching a fish every fucking catch.

      The problem with clickbait lies between the keyboard and the chair, not between the marketeer and the server.

      That said, half of marketing should be requested to report to the gallows for necktie sizing. That way, the rest of them will know the value of Truth in Advertising and we might find our way back to honesty driving profits instead of deceit.

    • Re:x is warming twice as rest of the world (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Layzej ( 1976930 ) on Friday November 04, 2022 @11:53AM (#63024625)
      That is a really great insight, but in this case there really is exceptional warming. According to the study, Europe has warmed at 0.5C/decade - faster than the warming experienced by any other continent. Global average (land only!) is 0.3C/decade [woodfortrees.org] over the period. Granted, 0.5C/decade isn't double, but it's a pretty remarkable rate.

      30 years is probably too short to establish a trend. Probably it will regress to the mean over the next few decades... but who knows.

  • But we should trust the models?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
      The models have been accurate thus far.

  • The Gulf Stream, a significant ocean current (see https://earth.nullschool.net/#... [nullschool.net]), has long had a moderating effect on EU climate. That's why you can grow tulips in Holland and British gardens are so easy. The Gulf Stream has been significantly South of it's historic path. I defer to the scientists discussing the Arctic, but have to believe the Gulf Stream is part of the reason. Or perhaps the warming Arctic is part of what is pushing the Gulf Stream South.

  • I'm sure the giant brains over at Watts Up With That will have a ready explanation as how this isn't really happening & how much hotter Europe used to be at some time in the past

  • Well, I guess they won't need as much natural gas (Score:3)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Friday November 04, 2022 @09:57AM (#63024251)
    Will help out the current situation.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      This.

      If Putin really wants to screw over NATO, he should cut back on Russian greenhouse gas emissions. And convince his allies, China and India to do the same. Freeze Europe and make them come begging for Russian natural gas.

  • I don't know how it compares nor what such a mechanism would be.
  • The continent most green. Is warming fastest

  • If indeed Europe alone is warming faster than other places, that would be really good for Europe.

    It would mean milder winters and longer growing seasons.

    What is the downside - for Europe specifically?

    If it were some place tropical, I would be more concerned about a region seeing much greater than average warming. But this actually seems OK.

  • They said that same story a few years ago. for multiple countries.
    I think this blog [andrewromanviews.blog] summarizes it well.

  • I hear though that they will have a big cooldown this winter.

  • No, Europe may be warming faster than other places on average but the most warming is still in the Arctic.

    The reason is simple. It has a dense population and cities are hot. This is called urban heat island effect and is easily measured. The centre of Melbourne runs 4 deg C hotter than the countryside around it. Guess where the thermometers are?

    https://www.epa.gov/heatisland... [epa.gov]

  • Europe is very cold in winter, but many places are quite warm in summer. I presume that milder winters and hotter summers might lead towards a move from gas and oil heaters to reversible heat pumps that can double as air conditioners. Also, I would like to know if having said heat pumps in milder winters that require less heating, but hot summers when they are used as air conditioners, would consume less energy overall compared to our current gas boilers that only warm our homes up during our current colder

  • I mean, it's the obvious deduction when a journal article claims a political entity is selectively experiencing a global effect

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