Europe is bracing for more extreme heat after record May temperatures swept across Britain, Ireland and France this week – with scientists saying a “heat dome” over western Europe is combining with human-driven climate change, shifting weather patterns and rapid Arctic warming to intensify heat across the world’s fastest-warming continent.
The high-pressure system trapping warm air from northern Africa over western Europe has pushed temperatures to levels more commonly seen in midsummer. More intense heat is forecast in the coming days.
Europe has warmed around 2.4C above preindustrial levels, compared with around 1.4C globally, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Since 1996, the continent has been heating at a rate of 0.56C per decade, compared with 0.27C globally.
Trapped heat
High-pressure systems linked to heatwaves have become more common across Europe over recent decades.
“If you look over the last 20, 30 years, there has been a prevalence, especially in summer, of those sort of anticyclonic conditions that are making heatwaves more likely,” explained Copernicus director Carlo Buontempo.
Scientists are still debating whether the growing frequency of these systems is directly linked to climate change, or part of a natural fluctuation.
Often called “blocking highs”, the systems can remain fixed over one region and prevent cooler weather systems from moving in.
“The sky is exposed to us, there are no clouds,” Mary Bourke, a geography professor at Trinity College Dublin, told the French news agency AFP.
“It’s a stable mass of air that is bringing warm air down to the surface and taking away moist air, so the air is not only warm, but it’s also dry.”
Europe’s Arctic edge
Europe is connected to the Arctic, which is warming much faster than the rest of the planet. The Arctic is now 3.2C warmer than in preindustrial times, according to Copernicus.
As sea ice melts, darker ocean water and land surfaces absorb heat instead of reflecting it back into space, creating a cycle that accelerates warming further.
Snow cover has also declined across parts of Europe, reducing the amount of sunlight reflected away from the Earth’s surface.
“We have many of the historical regions that had a week or more of freezing condition now, not having that. And this means exposing dark land rather than white snow,” Buontempo said.
Cleaner air has also contributed to rising temperatures. Reduced aerosol pollution since the 1980s has improved public health, but fewer airborne particles now reflect less sunlight away from the Earth.
Accelerated warming
The pace of warming varies sharply across Europe. Eastern and southeastern Europe, along with Alpine regions, have warmed by up to 1C per decade over the past 30 years, Copernicus said.
Western and southwestern Europe, along with sub-Arctic parts of Finland, Norway and Sweden, have warmed more slowly.
The fastest warming has been recorded in Svalbard, the Norwegian Arctic archipelago, where temperatures have risen by up to 2C per decade.
The archipelago recorded record high summer temperatures from 2022 to 2024, and last year saw its fourth warmest summer on record.
(with newswires)
.png?w=600)
