While global temperatures have been rising rapidly, primarily due to human activities that release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, not every region has been warming at the same rate. Europe, for example, has warmed about twice as much as the world as a whole, as highlighted by the 2024 European State of the Climate Report that came out last week.
The European State of Climate Report — an annual publication of Copernicus Climate Change Service, which is part of the European Commission — captures climate trends in Europe, and is published in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organisation.
The new edition of the report has said that the year 2024, which was the warmest ever for the planet, was the warmest for Europe as well, though there was a distinct East-West contrast within the continent. Eastern Europe was sunny and warm, while the western part was cloudier and wetter.
The report said much of eastern Europe saw warmer than average, or record-high, temperatures through the entire year in 2024. Southeastern Europe, comprising countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Kosovo, Serbia and others, also experienced its longest heatwave on record.
Higher warming in Europe
The planet as a whole has seen its annual average temperature rise by about 1.3 degree Celsius from the pre-industrial baseline (the average of 1850-1900), though the year 2024 breached the 1.5 degree Celsius warming for the first time.
Europe, however, has seen its average annual temperature rise by about 2.4 degree Celsius compared with pre-industrial times. This has resulted in an unprecedented spate of extreme weather events, including heatwaves, heavy rainfall and flooding. In 2024 for example, the area of Europe that experienced less than 90 days of below-freezing temperatures was the maximum ever. At the same time, the number of ‘cold stress days’ — days with extremely cold temperatures — was the lowest on record.
The Arctic Effect
Several factors contribute to the greater rate of warming over Europe, the most prominent being the fact that a substantial part of the continent lies in the Arctic region. In fact, Europe has the largest inhabited landmass in the polar region. And the warming around the poles, particularly the North Pole, is much more pronounced than anywhere else in the world. The contribution of warming around the North Pole pushes the average for Europe.
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The prime reason for greater warming in the Arctic is what is known as the albedo effect. The ice cover in the Arctic is melting, because of which more land or water is getting exposed to the Sun. Ice traps the least amount of heat, reflecting most solar radiation back. Land or water, which are darker surfaces, tend to absorb solar radiation better, leading to higher degrees of warming. The melting of ice sheets is a little less in Antarctica, because of which warming in Antarctica is less pronounced than that in the Arctic.
The Arctic is known to be warming three to four times faster than the global average, and accounts for the substantial part of the average global warming.
Warming is not uniform over the entire planet. Land areas have warmed more than the oceans, and higher-latitude areas, in general, have warmed more than tropical areas, which are nearer the equator. India, for example, has warmed only 0.7 degree Celsius from pre-industrial times, compared with the average of 1.59 degree Celsius for the entire land area on the planet. These numbers are from studies conducted a few years ago, and would have changed in the last few years.
Reduction in aerosols
Another factor contributing to higher warming rate in Europe is the reduction in aerosols emissions, the State of Climate report said. This is ironic since reduction in aerosols points to reduced air pollution and cleaner air to breathe. Aerosols refer to all kinds of tiny solid and liquid particles suspended in the atmosphere, and largely consist of air pollutants.
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These particles are able to scatter sunlight back so that there is less absorption of solar radiation by the Earth’s surface. Aerosols also help in cloud formation and clouds, in turn, have an impact on how much sunlight is reflected or absorbed.
Europe having relatively cleaner air and less emission of aerosols contributes to a faster warming.
Many other factors contribute to Europe’s faster rate of warming, the climate report said. These include changes in atmospheric circulation that favour more frequent summer heatwaves in the European region, the higher than average increase in the sea-surface temperatures around Europe, urban heat island effect, and the melting of glaciers, which has similar consequences as the albedo effect.
