Firefighters fight the fire in the Greek town of Glatsona


© Unidad Editorial, SA
Firefighters fight the fire in the Greek town of Glatsona

The summer of 2021 was the hottest in Europe on record, with temperatures slightly higher than those reached in 2010 and 2018, which were the warmest years. A summer that was not only marked by the heat waves suffered by Greece, Spain or Italy -Sicily registered a historical record of 48.8 ºC that has yet to be confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization-, but by extreme meteorological phenomena: devastating fires in Greece, Turkey and other countries in the Mediterranean area and the heavy floods in Central Europe in July that affected Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands and in which more than 200 people died. This is reflected in the report of the Copernicus Climate Change Service of the European Union presented this Monday. A work that documents how the last seven years have been, by a wide margin and worldwide, the hottest since measurements have been made. In the analysis of those seven warmest years, 2021 has been together with 2015 one of the coolest. Specifically, it stands as the fifth hottest year, when registering an average temperature that was 0.3 ° C higher than that of the reference period (1991-2020) and between 1.1 and 1.2 ° C higher than those recorded between 1850 and 1900, at the beginning of the industrial age. When it comes to the 2021 world average, there have also been significant differences over the months. The first five were characterized by relatively low temperatures compared to previous years, which had been very hot. Between June and October, however, the trend changed and the monthly records were among the four warmest measured so far. Compared with the reference period of the last 30 years (between 1991 and 2020), the regions with temperatures more above the average comprise a wide strip that extends from the west coast of the USA and Canada to the northeast of Canada and Greenland in addition to large parts of central and northern Africa and the Middle East. On the other hand, there were lower-than-average temperatures in the west and far east of Russia, Alaska, the central and eastern Pacific – concurrent with La Niña conditions at the beginning and end of the year – most of Australia and some areas of Antarctica.

Increase CO2 and methane

The measurements made by the satellites of the Copernicus network also show that the concentrations of greenhouse gases, the main cause of climate change, continued to increase in 2021. The global average column of carbon dioxide (CO2) reached an annual record of regarding 414 parts per million (ppm), and that of methane (CH4) an annual record of regarding 1,876 ppb. Forest fires contributed to increasing carbon emissions. The derivatives of these amounted to a total of 1,850 megatons, especially due to the fires that have ravaged Siberia. A figure that slightly exceeds that reached in 2020 (1,750 megatons of carbon emissions), although the trend since 2003 is downward.