Paris, France:
Austria, France, Germany, Poland and Switzerland announced their warmest Septembers on record on Friday, in a year expected to be the warmest in human history as climate change accelerates.
The unusually warm weather in Europe came after the EU climate monitor said earlier this month that global summer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere were the hottest on record.
French weather authority Meteo-France said the average temperature in September in the country will be around 21.5 degrees Celsius (70.7 degrees Fahrenheit), between 3.5 degrees Celsius and 3.6 degrees Celsius above the 1991-reference period 2020.
Average temperatures in France have consistently exceeded monthly norms for almost two years.
In neighboring Germany, weather agency DWD said this month was the warmest September since national records began, almost 4 degrees higher than the 1961-1990 baseline.
The Polish Weather Institute announced that temperatures in September were 3.6 degrees higher than average and the warmest of the month since records began more than 100 years ago.
National weather organizations in the Alpine countries of Austria and Switzerland also recorded the highest average September temperatures on record, a day after a study found that Switzerland’s glaciers lost 10 percent of their volume in two years due to extreme warming.
The Spanish and Portuguese National Weather Institutes warned that there would be abnormally warm temperatures this weekend, with the mercury reaching above 35 degrees in parts of southern Spain on Friday.
Records ‘systematically’ broken
Scientists say climate change caused by human activity is raising global temperatures, with global warming about 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service told AFP earlier this month that 2023 will likely be the hottest year humanity has ever experienced.
Higher temperatures are likely on the horizon as the El Nino weather phenomenon – which is warming waters in the South Pacific Ocean and beyond – is only just beginning.
The disruption of the planet’s climate systems is causing extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts, wildfires and storms to become more frequent and intense, causing greater losses of life and property.
World leaders will meet in Dubai from November 30 for crucial UN talks aimed at curbing the worst effects of climate change, including limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a target of the historic 2015 Paris Agreement .
Cutting greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet – especially by phasing out consumption of polluting gas, oil and coal – climate financing and increasing renewable energy capacity will be central to the discussions.
“Until we reach carbon neutrality, heat records will be systematically broken, week after week, month after month, year after year,” Francois Gemenne, lead author of the UN climate report, told AFP this week.
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