(CN) — The dangerous effects of climate change hit Europe hard last year, with massive flooding, record-breaking heat waves and glacier melting, dire drought conditions and its largest-ever wildfire slamming the continent, according to a new report by European Union and United Nations climate scientists.
“Europe in 2023 saw a huge number of records,” said Samantha Burgess, the deputy director of the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service, in a news briefing.
Copernicus and the World Meteorological Organization jointly released the European State of the Climate report, a yearly review, on Monday, summarizing just how drastic 2023 was in Europe, the planet's fastest-warming continent.
Last year, Europe broke records in numerous areas: The most people affected by heat stress; highest ocean temperatures; glaciers melting more than ever; rivers carrying the highest flows ever for the month of December; and the largest wildfire ever in the EU.
“Across Europe, there is an increasing number of days during which heat stress is experienced, and a decreasing number of days with cold stress,” scientists wrote in the report.
At its peak last July, an intense heat wave covered 41% of southern Europe, with temperatures remaining high day and night, resulting in heat stress conditions.
In July, it got so hot and intolerable in some places that people were at risk from “extreme heat stress,” researchers wrote. Under such conditions, the temperature can feel like it is more than 114 degrees Fahrenheit.
An estimate for 2023 heat-related deaths was unavailable, but based on previous years, the researchers said last summer's intense heat likely caused tens of thousands of deaths.
“Since 1970, extreme heat has been the leading cause of weather- and climate-related deaths in Europe,” the researchers said.
The analysis found 23 of Europe's 30 most severe heatwaves have occurred since 2000 and that five of those took place in the last three years. Between 55,000 and 72,000 people died due to summer heat in 2003, 2010 and 2022, according to the report's statistics. Older people living in cities are the most at risk.
“The frequency, intensity and duration of heatwaves will continue to increase, with serious consequences for public health,” researchers wrote.
Along with the heat came drought.
“Soil moisture was drier than average across Europe for the year as a whole,” researchers said.
From February to May, the Iberian Peninsula saw a period of drought; between March and May many parts of Spain experienced their driest conditions on record, the report said. Drought conditions have worsened this year and extended into southern Italy.
It wasn't just Europe suffering in 2023, a year marked by the emergence of El Niño, a natural weather pattern that typically brings warmer and more unpredictable conditions. Last year was the warmest on record globally.
When moisture did come, it wreaked its own havoc. In Italy, heavy rains in May led to 23 rivers bursting their banks. The flooding killed 15 people and covered about 209 square miles. About 36,000 people were forced out of their homes.
Then in August, nearly two-thirds of Slovenia was clobbered by flooding with record-high river flows at 31 stations. Norway, Sweden, Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey also were hit by floodwaters in August and September. In Greece, about 270 square miles, much of it farmland, was covered in floodwaters.
About 1.6 million people were affected by last year's flooding and 44 people died in the floods, researchers said.
Wildfires also caused extensive damage and killed 44 people in 2023. A wildfire in northeastern Greece, close to the border with Turkey, became the EU's largest ever after it burned for days and scorched more than 237,000 acres.
Portugal, Spain and Italy also suffered large wildfires. In all, it was the fourth-worst wildfire season on record for the EU with more than 1.2 million acres burned, according to the analysis.
The report put the cost of weather- and climate-related damages at 13.4 billion euros (about $14.3 billion), with floods accounting for about 81% of the losses.
The report said last year's extreme heat affected the oceans too, with a “marine heatwave” recorded in June in the Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of Ireland and the United Kingdom.
“The event was classified as 'extreme' and in some areas 'beyond extreme',” the WMO said.
At times, sea surface temperatures were as much as 9 degrees F above average.
“For the year as a whole, the average sea-surface temperature for the ocean across Europe was the warmest on record,” WMO said. “Parts of the Mediterranean Sea and the northeastern Atlantic Ocean saw their highest annual average sea-surface temperature on record.”
Meanwhile, across Central Europe and in the Alps, there were fewer days with snow than average during the winter and spring, scientists said. The lack of snow and summer heatwaves led to “exceptional” ice loss in the Alps: Glaciers lost about 10% of their remaining volume over 2022 and 2023.
Conditions in the Arctic region were dire too, the report said.
Last year, temperatures on the Arctic land masses were the second warmest on record, closely behind those 2022.
“The five warmest years on record for Arctic land have all occurred since 2016,” the WMO said.
“2023 was a complex and multifaceted year in terms of climate hazards in Europe,” said Carlo Buontempo, the Copernicus director.
“We witnessed it with widespread floods but also high temperature extremes, wildfire, severe drought,” he said. “And these events have not only strained natural ecosystems, but they also pose severe challenges to agriculture, water resources management and public health.”
“Extreme events are likely to become more frequent and more intense due to climate change,” Burgess said.
Europe is warming about 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.72 F) a decade, or about twice as much as the global average, according to Copernicus.
This makes Europe the fastest-warming continent on earth, though the Arctic region is getting warmer even faster. Scientists say the Arctic is warming about four times more quickly than the rest of the planet.
Burgess said warm ocean currents, Europe's proximity to the Arctic and improving air quality over Europe are the main reasons for Europe's warming trend.
In recent years, scientists have linked efforts to reduce aerosols and improve air quality to atmospheric warming because some pollutants reflect sunlight and therefore have a cooling effect.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
Follow @cainburdeau
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