Climate

Europe is increasingly facing bouts of heat so intense that the human body cannot cope, as climate change continues to raise temperatures, the EU's Copernicus climate monitoring service and the World Meteorological Organization said on Monday.

Europe endured a record number of "extreme heat stress" days in 2023, two leading climate monitors said Monday, underscoring the threat of increasingly deadly summers across the continent.

In a year of contrasting extremes, Europe witnessed scorching heatwaves but also catastrophic flooding, withering droughts, violent storms and its largest wildfire.

Europe's climate monitor said on April 9 that March was the hottest on record and the tenth straight month of historic heat, with sea surface temperatures also hitting a "shocking" new high.

It is the latest red flag in a year already marked by climate extremes and rising greenhouse gas emissions, spurring fresh calls for more rapid action to limit global warming.

The rapid return of the La Nina weather phenomenon "may actually decrease" the risk that 2024 smashes last year's record heat, Europe's climate monitor told AFP, amid enduring historic global temperatures.

The warming El Nino weather phenomenon that peaked in December was one of the five strongest ever recorded, the United Nations said Tuesday, predicting that it would produce above-normal temperatures from now to May.

A new report published by the Dianeosis think-tank on Tuesday raises some alarming points about the impact climate change is having on Athens, including raising both the Greek capital's average high and low temperatures by more than 1 degree Celsius in the past 30 years and pushing highs even further in the decades to come.

Rising temperatures, extended heatwaves and drought are making the impact of climate change felt all over the world.

Now, the first study in Greece examining the effect of climate change on the future microclimate of historical monuments and artifacts shows us how extreme weather events will also impact the country's cultural heritage.

It has already caused a "deafening cacophony" and temperature records, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced today, according to Reuters.
"We are living and going through a climate collapse in real time," said United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the opening of the COP28 summit in Dubai, the Guardian reported.

As they further state, it could threaten the lives of up to six billion people by the end of the century.
In the study "Climate State Report 2023: Entering Unexplored Territory", published in the journal Bioscience, specific climate events this year are pointed out.

July 2023 easily broke the record for the hottest month ever recorded on Earth, surpassing the previous record, which was July 2019, by 0.33°C.

Marked by heatwaves and wildfires around the world, last month's average air temperature was 0.72°C higher than the most recent July average from 1991 - 2020.