Wildfires in Europe have never been as large as in the summer of 2022 – In France and Spain, summer fires are nearly six times larger than average
By Pierre Breteau
21 July 2022
(Le Monde) – From Gironde to Brittany, France is burning as drought and exceptional heat rage. The entire European Union (EU) is also suffering from extreme weather conditions. And most of the EU 27 Member States have already suffered from fires that have destroyed areas of forest that are far greater than the averages for previous years.
The EU has mobilized additional aid – most notably firefighting aircraft from the Greek fleet, to France, Portugal and Albania – in order to fight the ferocious fires that have broken out in these three countries.
In France and Spain, the summer fires are nearly six times larger than the average. In the east of the continent, these figures sometimes rise to 50 times more, as in Hungary, Slovakia and Switzerland. Even though for the last two cases, we are only talking about a few hundred hectares.
Up to six times more area burned in Europe
This graph shows, for 11 European countries and the Mediterranean basin, the area of forest fires recorded in 2022, compared with the average from 2006 to 2021. [more]
Wildfires in Europe have never been as large as in the summer of 2022
Heat wave: View the high-temperature records broken in France in June and July
By Pierre Breteau
20 July 2022
(Le Monde) – France and Europe are suffocating, overwhelmed by an exceptional heat wave. Monday, July 18, was the hottest day ever recorded in France since August 5, 2003 (the national thermal indicator for maximum temperatures reached 37.6°C, compared to 37.7°C in 2003). Of the 146 stations for which we have data, 27 recorded a new maximum temperature in 2022, most of them on July 18 and 19 or on June 18. Some even exceeded their previous maximum value once in June and once in July, such as in Biscarosse (Landes), which had not experienced such high temperatures since 1968, and in Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), which exceeded its 73-year-old maximum by 1.7°C.
The years 2010 and 2022 are when the pace of global warming and extreme weather events will accelerate, as noted in 2021 by the World Meteorological Organization. France is not spared, as the increasingly frequent exceedances of maximum temperatures show.
For more than a hundred French weather stations, the highest temperatures ever recorded were in the 21st century. Many of these records have been broken several times since the major heat wave of 2003.
85 percent of the extreme temperatures recorded in the 21st century
This chart represents the highest temperatures ever recorded at stations throughout metropolitan France. At 146 stations for which we have data, the highest temperature ever recorded is less than 20 years old, from 2003 to 2022.
Maximum temperatures in 127 stations
These graphs represent, for a part of the 146 stations for which Météo-France provided us with the data, the level of the most extreme temperatures ever recorded and their date.
The data are fragmentary because it is difficult to go back beyond the 1990’s, or even the August 2003 heat wave, and only those with a historical record of at least 20 years are shown below. [more]
Heat wave: View the high-temperature records broken in France in June and July
