2022 saw record temperatures in Europe

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Published on 12 January 2023

In 2022, Europe saw extremely high temperatures and a continuous rise in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. According to the Global Climate Highlights for 2022, recently published by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) which is implemented by ECMWF, many temperature records were broken.

The summer season in 2022 was extremely warm, and it was in fact the hottest on record for the European continent, with many countries in Western and Northern Europe affected by intense and prolonged heatwaves. Temperatures in the Autumn were also significantly above average, and the season was registered as the third warmest on record. Overall, 2022 was the second-hottest year on record for the continent: apart from Iceland, all of Europe recorded annual temperatures higher than the 1991-2020 average. The unusually warm and dry weather conditions caused significant drought conditions affecting large parts of Europe, especially in countries in the south-west, such as France and Spain.

This image, created using data retrieved from the C3S Climate Data Store, shows the Surface Air Temperature Anomaly for the average temperatures in 2022 in Europe.

This image, created using data retrieved from the C3S Climate Data Store, shows the Surface Air Temperature Anomaly for the average temperatures in 2022 in Europe.

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