LONDON/BRUSSELS (Archyde.com) – Europe continues to experience record warmth through the end of the year and into the new year. Environmental activists have called for more urgent action to tackle climate change, a relief for governments struggling with rising natural gas prices.
From Switzerland to Poland to Hungary, temperatures have hit record highs in the past few days, with the Hungarian capital Budapest hitting a record high of 18.9 degrees Celsius on New Year’s Day. In France, the temperature on December 30-31 last year was the highest since statistics began, and the temperature in the southwest reached nearly 25 degrees Celsius on New Year’s Day. This area is usually bustling with ski resorts, but due to the lack of snow, the area is becoming deserted.
Germany’s meteorological agency said it hadn’t had a warmer New Year’s Eve since 1881, when records began to be kept.
Czech television reported that some trees in private gardens are already beginning to bloom. The Swiss meteorological agency has issued a pollen warning for people with allergies after hazelnut flowers bloomed.
The temperature at Bilbao Airport in Spain’s Basque Country is 25.1 degrees Celsius. Around the nearby museum, people were seen sunbathing and strolling along the Nervion River.
Eusebio Forgueira, 81, who lives in Bilbao, is surprised: “It always rains a lot and it’s very cold here. It’s January. (But now) it feels like summer.”
French traveler Joana Ost said: “It’s great weather for a bike ride, but we know the earth is on fire, so enjoy it while you’re at it.” I feel terrible,” he said.
Scientists have yet to finish analyzing how climate change is specifically affecting the recent warm winter. But the fact that January was this warm fits perfectly with the long-term warming trend of human-induced climate change.
“European winters are getting warmer each year as a result of rising global temperatures,” said Freja Bamburgh, a climate scientist at the European Union’s weather information agency Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).
Dr Friederike Ott, a climate scientist at Imperial College London, also said: “The record high temperatures across Europe over the New Year are more likely to have been caused by human-induced climate change.”
Robert Botard, director of the Pierre-Simon Laplace Institute in France, said that although the temperature rise peaked between December 30 and January 2, the warm weather itself has been going on for two weeks and is not over yet. explained. He said it was a relatively long-lasting meteorological phenomenon.
France’s meteorological agency attributed the unusually high temperatures to a flood of warm air flowing into Europe from the subtropics.
Ski resorts across the country have been directly affected, with almost no customers due to cancellations of reservations. Ski resorts in northern Spain, such as Asturias, Leon and Cantabria, have been closed since the Christmas holiday season due to lack of snow.
The Jahorina Mountains near Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, which was the venue for the 1984 Winter Olympics, should have been the busiest season for skiers, but there was no snow on the ground and no one was on the lifts. Only one couple was having dinner at a guesthouse restaurant.
A ski jumping event scheduled for January 7-8 in Zakopane, southern Poland, has been cancelled.
“What we are seeing is exactly what climate scientists warned of 10, 20 years ago and can no longer be prevented,” said Carsten Smid, a climate expert at the environmental group Greenpeace Germany. He called for urgent action to stop further dramatic warming.
On the other hand, from the perspective of European countries, which have struggled to find alternative sources of energy and keep energy prices in check after Russia cut its energy supply, this unusually warm winter has served as a “god of savior” to weather the immediate crisis. play.
The energy crisis has led European nations to urge a faster shift from fossil fuels to clean energy, but the short-term challenge is finding enough natural gas from Russia to make up for the slump in supply. Still not resolved.
But recently, rising temperatures have reduced demand for heating gas in many countries, leading to lower prices for natural gas. The Dutch TTF near-month contract for natural gas trading fell to 70.25 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) on Monday morning, the lowest since just before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year.
The head of Italy’s energy agency said he expects energy regulation rates to fall this month if a warm winter continues to push gas prices lower.
(Reporters Matthias Williams and Kate Abnett)