The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announces that the past three-month period from December 2019 to February 2020, was by far the warmest on record for Europe.
With persistent mild weather over Europe, particularly in the north and east, the past winter was 3.4 °C warmer than the average winter for the period 1981-2010. The temperature was almost 1.4°C higher than that of the previous warmest winter, 2015/16. Back in November C3S seasonal predictions provided strong indications that this could be a warm winter for Europe.
“Europe has been experiencing its mildest winter on record. Whilst this was a truly extreme event in its own right, it is likely that these sorts of events have been made more extreme by the global warming trend”, says Carlo Buontempo, Director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). “Seeing such a warm winter is disconcerting, but does not represent a climate trend as such. Seasonal temperatures, especially outside the tropics vary significantly from year to year. Part of our work is to compare climate data dating back to the pre-industrial era to ascertain long-term climate trends. With C3S data, individuals, institutions and policy makers can make informed decisions based on the evolving climate temperatures.”
“Considerably above-average temperatures were not confined to Europe, but extended over most of Russia,” the climate service wrote on their website.
“Other regions that were quite substantially warmer than average include north-western Africa, Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia, and much of China, with smaller pockets in North and South America, central and southern Africa and Western Australia,” they explained.
