Europe Is Experiencing Its Hottest Winter on Record

Sure, the spread of Covid-19 has been grabbing most of the headlines lately, but here’s a story that’s just as scary – Europe is experiencing by far its hottest winter on record. Yes, again. According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the average temperature for December, January, and February was 1.4C above the previous record, set two winters ago. This coincided with the failure of wine harvests in Germany, serious flooding in the UK, and the fact that snow had to be imported for sporting events in Sweden and Russia. Helsinki, Finland experienced its first January on record without snowfall.

RELATED: Historic Heat Impacts Antarctica

In an interview with the Guardian, the director of C3S Carlo Buontempo, stated that: “Whilst this winter was a truly extreme event in its own right, it is likely that these sorts of events have been made more extreme by the global warming trend.”

Around the world, record warming temperatures have been observed, including the fact that Antartica saw temperatures above 68 degrees F for the first time on record in February. After devastating bushfires last year, Australia is experiencing its second-hottest summer on record currently.