Europe – Page 6 – Desdemona Despair

Global average surface temperature compared to a preindustrial baseline, 1940-2022. Data: Copernicus / ECMWF. Graphic: The New York Times

January 10, 2023

The last 8 years were the hottest on record – “The rare event now would be to see a really cold year”

By Henry Fountain and Mira Rojanasakul 10 January 2023 (The New York Times) – The world remained firmly in warming’s grip last year, with extreme summer temperatures in Europe, China, and elsewhere contributing to 2022 being the fifth-hottest year on record, European climate researchers said on Tuesday. The eight warmest years on record have now […]

Police officers stand guard as activists protest on 8 January 2023. Protesters oppose the destruction of the hamlet of Luetzerath, Germany for the expansion of the Garzweiler open-cast lignite mine by Germany’s utility RWE. Photo: Thilo Schmuelgen / REUTERS

January 9, 2023

German police prepare to clear climate activists from condemned coal village

9 January 2023 (DPA) – German police will soon move to evict climate activists from a deserted village in the west of the country before its demolition for opencast coal mining, a senior officer said Monday. Energy giant RWE intends to demolish Lützerath in order to mine the area. Residents have left, but climate activists […]

Cyrille Honoré, head of the WMO Disaster Risk Reduction and Public Services Branch. Photo: Stanley Honoré

January 9, 2023

“Brutal” temperature changes are the new normal, says UN meteorological agency – Interview with Cyrille Honoré

6 January 2023 (UN News) – The rapid 10-degree Celsius rise in temperature across large parts of Europe before Christmas was “brutal” but it could be the shape of things to come, the UN Meteorological Organization WMO, said on Friday. In an interview with UN News’s Daniel Johnson, Cyrille Honoré, head of the UN agency’s […]

Regional glacier mass change and contributions to sea level rise from 2015 to 2100. Discs show global and regional projections of glacier mass remaining by 2100 relative to 2015 for global mean temperature change scenarios. Discs are scaled based on each region’s contribution to global mean sea level rise from 2015 to 2100 for the +2°C scenario by 2100 relative to preindustrial levels, and nested rings are colored by temperature change scenarios showing normalized mass remaining in 2100. Regional sea level rise contributions >1 mm SLE for the +2°C scenario are printed in the center of each disc. The horizontal bars below each disc show time series of area-averaged annual mass balance from 2015 to 2100 for +1.5°C (top bar) and +3°C (bottom bar) scenarios. The colorbar is saturated at −2.5 m w.e., but minimum annual values reach −4.2 m w.e. in Scandinavia. Graphic: Rounce, et al., 2022 / Science

January 7, 2023

Half of glaciers will be gone by 2100 even under Paris 1.5C accord, study finds

By Phoebe Weston 5 January 2023 (The Guardian) – Half the planet’s glaciers will have melted by 2100 even if humanity sticks to goals set out in the Paris climate agreement, according to research that finds the scale and impacts of glacial loss are greater than previously thought. At least half of that loss will happen […]

Police guard a lignite excavator near the German village of Luetzerath, 4 January 2023. Luetzerath was to be razed to expand Garzweiler lignite coal mine near the Dutch border. The tactic of energy company RWE was to quickly dredge away areas that can be used for activism and resistance. Photo: Marius Michusch / hessen.social

January 7, 2023

Protests erupt near German village set to be razed to expand coal mine

BERLIN, 2 January 2023 (AP) – Scuffles broke out on Monday outside a village in western Germany that is to be razed to allow the expansion of a coal mine, a plan that is drawing resistance from climate activists. Activists threw fireworks, bottles and stones at police outside the village of Luetzerath before the situation […]

Surface temperatures anomalies in Europe, 31 December 2022 - 2 January 2023. Temperatures are in degrees Celsius. On New Year’s Day, at least seven countries saw their warmest January weather on record as temperatures surged to springtime levels: Latvia hit 52 degrees (11.1 Celsius); Denmark 54.7 degrees (12.6 Celsius); Lithuania 58.3 degrees (14.6 Celsius); Belarus 61.5 degrees (16.4 Celsius); the Netherlands 62.4 degrees (16.9 Celsius); Poland 66.2 degrees (19.0 Celsius); and the Czech Republic 67.3 degrees (19.6 Celsius). Graphic: Weatherbell.com

January 2, 2023

Thousands of records shattered in historic winter warm spell in Europe – At least seven countries saw warmest January weather on record on New Year’s Day – “It’s the most extreme event ever seen in European climatology. Nothing stands close to this.”

By Ian Livingston 2 January 2023 (The Washington Post) – As 2022 turned to 2023, an exceptionally strong wintertime heat dome pounced on much of Europe, producing unprecedented warmth for January. As temperatures soared 18 to 36 degrees Fahrenheit (10 to 20 Celsius) above normal from France to western Russia, thousands of records were broken […]

The carcass of an elephant that died during the drought is seen in the Shaba National Reserve, Isiolo county, Kenya, 22 September 2022. Photo: Baz Ratner / REUTERS

December 31, 2022

Reuters pictures of the year: Extreme weather in 2022

30 December 2022 (Reuters) – From historic droughts to floods, climate change worsened weather extremes in 2022. See more 2022 extreme weather and environment photos from Reuters here and here. Pictures of the year: Extreme weather in 2022

Maasai children stand beside a zebra that local residents say died due to drought, as they graze their cattle at Ilangeruani village, near Lake Magadi, in Kenya, on 9 November 2022. Photo: Brian Inganga / AP Photo

December 31, 2022

In 2022, AP photographers captured pain of a changing planet

By Peter Prengaman 16 December 2022 (AP) – In 2022, Associated Press photographers captured signs of a planet in distress as climate change reshaped many lives. That distress was seen in the scarred landscapes in places where the rains failed to come. It was felt in walloping storms, land-engulfing floods, suffocating heat and wildfires no […]

A local resident fights a forest fire with a shovel during a wildfire in Tabara, north-west Spain, Tuesday, 19 July 2022. Spain’s national weather service said preliminary data indicates that 2022 will finish with average daily temperatures above 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time since records started in 1961. It says that the four hottest years on record for the southern European country have all come since 2015. Photo: Bernat Armangue / AP Photo

December 23, 2022

Spain records hottest year ever in 2022 – Four hottest years on record for Spain have all come since 2015

MADRID, 21 December 2022 (AP) – Spain is about to conclude its hottest year on record, the nation’s weather service said Wednesday. Spain’s national weather service said preliminary data indicates that 2022 will finish with average daily temperatures above 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time since records started in 1961. The […]

Proportion of climate survey respondents in Norway who expressed they were concerned or unconcerned about climate change, 2017-2021. Respondents ranked how concerned they were about climate change on a scale from 1 to 4. Since 2017, nearly 3000 young people aged 17 to 20 participated in the survey. Graphic: Haugseth, et al., 2022 / Sociology

December 21, 2022

Greta Thunberg effect evident among Norwegian youth – Thunberg says she’s ready to hand over megaphone – “We should also listen to reports and experiences from people who are most affected by the climate crisis”

By Ingebjørg Hestvik 9 December 2022 (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) – Since 2017, nearly 3000 young people aged 17 to 20 have shared in their own words what they consider important in Norwegian society, and whom they regard as good role models. The survey showed a clear shift in Norwegian youth in autumn […]