
The year 2024 was the warmest on record in Europe, with the climate seeing a pronounced east-west contrast: Extremely dry and often record-warm conditions were prevalent in the east while the west saw more warm but wet conditions, according to The European State of the Climate 2024.
The temperature rise has been unequal, with eastern and southern Europe bearing much of the brunt. The warming trend was seen in other parts of the continent too. Other areas have generally seen above-average temperatures for the year, barring Iceland and parts of Greenland which were the only areas with cooler than average temperature.
Overall, 45 per cent of days in the continent in 2024 were much warmer than average and 12 per cent of days were the warmest on record.
“Our findings says that Europe is the fastest warming continent, and it just experienced its warmest year on record,” Director-General, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Florence Rabier said at a press conference. “When averaged over five years, the temperature in Europe is reaching at least 2.4°C above preindustrial times,” she added.
More concerning is the warming in Svalbard, a group of islands (archipelago) located between the Arctic Ocean, Barents Sea, Greenland Sea, and the Norwegian Sea. Svalbard summer temperatures surpassed 2023’s record by a very large margin of around 1°C. This was also its third record-warm summer in a row.
Last year, the average summer temperature in Svalbard reached a new record high at more than 2.5°C above average, Rabier explained. She added that climate change is just not a global average temperature number. Rather, it has impacts on regional and local scales.
For the Arctic as a whole, 2024 was the third warmest year on record. Here too, impacts vary with regions. The more western parts of the European Arctic saw near-average temperatures, while the eastern part saw much above average and often record high temperatures.
Further, the near-average temperature in western parts of the Arctic were linked to the Greenland Ice Sheet recording its third smallest mass loss since 2001. The much above average and often record high temperatures likely contributed to glaciers in Svalbard and Scandinavia seeing record-high rates of mass loss in 2024, and the largest glacier mass loss of any region globally in 2024, the report stated. Even as all European regions saw a loss of ice, impacts on glaciers in Scandinavia and Svalbard were more pronounced, registering their highest rates of mass loss on record.
In the whole of 2024, the sea surface temperatures (SST) for the European region were the highest on record, at 0.7°C above average, and for the Mediterranean Sea, 1.2°C above average. The report explains that SST are a key indicator for understanding how the ocean and atmosphere exchange energy, as well as the ocean’s role in shaping weather and climate.
Annual SSTs, showed the report, crossed average levels across most of the region, barring the Iceland Sea and southwest of Greenland.
As for precipitation, one of the 10 wettest years since 1950 was seen in western Europe, with the most above-average precipitation in France, northern Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark and northern Fennoscandia. On the other hand, conditions were drier-than-average across eastern and southeastern Europe.
Overall, Europe experienced above-average precipitation, with around 34 per cent of the land area seeing above-average annual precipitation.
The report also highlights an increase in the intensity of the most extreme events, which could trigger increased flooding. This increased intensity perhaps contributed to some of the most catastrophic events seen in 2024.
The year 2024 also witnessed the most widespread flooding since 2013, with river flows in 30 per cent of the European river network exceeding the ‘high’ flood threshold and 12 per cent crossing the ‘severe’ flood threshold.
July 2024 saw the longest heatwave on record for southeastern Europe. The region’s Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI), which measures the effect of the environment on people, accounting for temperature, humidity, wind, sunshine and radiation, was 3.3°C above average, the report showed.
There also has been an increase in night-time temperatures, which can affect health by offering little respite from the days’ heat. In summer, southeastern Europe experienced a record 23 tropical nights, far exceeding the previous record of 16 in 2012. Tropical nights occur when the minimum daily temperature does not fall below 20°C. However, cold stress days are declining. A record low number of days with at least ‘strong cold stress’ was seen in the continent.
Wildfires, too, created a havoc. In September, fires burned around 110,000 hectares in one week in Portugal, affecting over 42,000 people. This represents around a quarter of Europe’s total annual burnt area.
“Every additional fraction of a degree of temperature rise matters because it accentuates the risks to our lives, to economies and to the planet. Adaptation is a must. World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and its partners are therefore intensifying efforts to strengthen early warning systems and climate services to help decision-makers and society at large to be more resilient. We are making progress but need to go further and need to go faster, and we need to go together,” WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo, said in a statement.