It’s an unbelievably balmy winter in Europe. You’d expect freezing temperatures and snow-covered streets and capped peaks. Instead, it’s getting warm. Parts of Europe have been experiencing an unprecedented winter heat wave. It sounds like an antithesis but it is the reality of 2023.
Along with the New Year’s weekend came soaring temperatures. At least seven countries experienced the warmest January as thousands of records were broken, according to a report by The Washington Post.How hot is it in Europe?
Temperatures were at least 10 to 20 degrees Celsius above normal from France to western Europe. On the first day of the year, seven countries recorded their warmest January: It was 19.6 Celsius in the Czech Republic, 19 in Poland and 16.9 degrees Celsius in the Netherlands, the report says. The other countries that witnessed “spring-like” weather were Belarus (16.4 Celsius), Lithuania (14.6 Celsius), Denmark (12.6 Celsius) and Latvia (11.1 Celsius).
London-based meteorologist Scott Duncan wrote on Twitter, “We just observed the warmest January day on record for many countries in Europe. Truly unprecedented in modern records.”
Snowy slopes have disappeared from the Alps, the tallest mountain range in Europe, which spans across France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, and Slovenia. Patches of grass, gravel, and dirt can be seen in some of the premier ski resorts in France, Austria, and Switzerland. This has put a dampener on the start of the ski season, which will affect the alpine communities that depend on winter sports for a living.
France saw temperatures soaring to 24.8 degrees Celsius in Verdun. The country as a whole saw its warmest New Year’s Eve.
Paleoclimatologist Pete D Akers said that it was 8.5 degrees Celsius at Chamrousse ski resort outside Grenoble, France.
In Switzerland, temperatures touched 20 degrees Celsius, with many ski resorts witnessing a snow shortage, reports BBC. In Spain, temperatures in Bilbao were equivalent to the average in July. Station records were also broken in Germany and Ukraine.
Also read: Warm December: Why winter is so late this year
Why is it so warm this winter?
According to some climate experts, the January weather is a result of global warming. There have been warnings that it will cause warmer, wetter winters.
Nahel Belgherze, a meteorology and climate enthusiast, wrote on Twitter,
“One of the most severe winter heatwave in Europe’s modern history visualized over the last 2 days. Hundreds of monthly warm temperature records were broken all over the continent. This is exactly the kind of very abnormal event that is progressively rewriting global climatology,” he wrote.
Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist who tracks global weather extremes, called the event “totally insane” and “absolute madness”. He wrote that some of the high nighttime temperatures observed were uncommon in midsummer, reports The Washington Post. It’s “the most extreme event ever seen in European climatology.”
According to the publication, Europe is experiencing a “strong wintertime heat dome”.
Also read: Snowmageddon: How Arctic warming is causing extreme cold in the USWhat is a heat dome?
A heat dome occurs when the atmosphere traps hot air over a region like a lid or a cap. The longer that air remains trapped, the more the sun works to heat the air, producing warmer conditions with every passing day, reports The Indian Express.
The stagnant weather pattern usually results in weak winds and increases in humidity.
Heat domes normally persist for several days in any one location, but they can last longer. They can also move, influencing neighbouring areas over a week or two, according to a report in The Conversation. Stretching for days to weeks, this weather condition can cause people, crops and animals to suffer through stagnant, hot air that can feel like an oven.
“… heat domes are tied to the behavior of the jet stream, a band of fast winds high in the atmosphere that generally runs west to east. Normally, the jet stream has a wavelike pattern, meandering north and then south and then north again. When these meanders in the jet stream become bigger, they move slower and can become stationary. That’s when a heat done occurs,” an article published by the World Economic Forum points out.
The UK experienced its hottest year on record in 2022. File image/AFP
How common are heat domes?
The US experienced a heat dome event between June and July 2021, when Washington set a state record with 49 degrees Celsius. The temperatures soared to 44.9 degrees Celsius in neighbouring Canada’s British Columbia. It led to hundreds of deaths with at least 486 reported from the Canadian province.
In early September 2022, a long-lasting heat dome settled over the US West and brought scorching temperatures that set all-time highs. The worst hit was California, parts of western Arizona and southern Nevada. The extreme heat fueled wildfires and stressed the power grid, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory.
A study published last year in the journal Nature Climate Change said that the 2021 heat dome was amplified by climate change and could become a once-in-10-year event if global temperatures aren’t kept below 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average.
The study cited the interaction between factors, including climate change, atmospheric weather patterns and dry soils in the Pacific Northwest as factors that allowed the heat wave to reach extreme levels.
Also read: Gloomy winters in Saint-Firmin: Why this French village is giving up skiing
Temperatures are rising in several countries in Europe this January because of a wintertime heat dome. File photo/AFP
But isn’t even Europe getting warmer?
Even without the heat dome, Europe is getting warmer. The UK, Ireland, France and Spain declared 2022 their hottest year on record recently. In the UK, every month but December was hotter than average, reports the BBC.
The UK met office said that human-induced climate change has impacted weather patterns, adding that there has been relatively consistent heat throughout the year. “Although it doesn’t mean every year will be the warmest on record, climate change continues to increase the chances of increasingly warm years over the coming decades,” said Dr Mark McCarthy, the head of the UK Met Office’s National Climate Information Centre.With inputs from agencies
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