Unprecedented temperatures for this time of year were recorded in particular in Austria, France and Switzerland.
With temperatures comparable to those currently reached on the shores of the Red Sea, in Sharm el-Sheikh (Egypt), at COP27, where representatives from nearly 200 countries are meeting to fight against climate change, the month of october was remarkably warm in Europe.
“Based on analysis of data dating back to 1979, temperature records were observed in many parts of Austria, Germany, Spain, France, Italy and Switzerland in October 2022”, notes the European Copernicus service for climate change. In particular, in the western part of the Old Continent, daily temperatures reached new highs for this time of year, worthy of the end of summer. They exceeded 30°C in France and Spain. And nighttime temperatures above 20°C, referred to as “tropical”were also noted in France, Switzerland and Austria, which “experienced its hottest October night nationally, at 20.4°C”specifies the European service.
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On average, in France, the temperature was 17.2 ° C in October, explains Copernicus, which is based in particular on satellite measurements. With readings over a long historical period, Météo-France notes that “the exceptional late heat episode” led to “temperatures everywhere in France higher by 4 to 5 ° C than normal for the season”. In Corsica, in Figari, the thermometer climbed to 32.5°C on October 23, the highest since the opening of the station in 1979. The 30°C reached in Bordeaux, on October 16, are the latest in the history of the weather station. Heat peaks had already been observed, particularly in the south-west of France, at the beginning of November 2015 or at the end of October 2014 and 2017 in the south of the country. But the repetition of these increasingly frequent, intense and long episodes is a sign of climate disruption.
Consistency between climate measurements and projections
“The month of October warmer by 2°C in Europe does not, in itself, give a trend, emphasizes Jean-Noël Thépaut, director of Copernicus services. But this comes after the hottest summer 2022 measured in Europe, which itself broke the record for summer 2021. Moreover, overall, the last eight years are the hottest on record. And these latest readings are consistent with the latest IPCC climate projections. (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, editor’s note).» There is therefore good consistency between climate measurements and projections with, however, “temperature readings that are at the top of the model forecast range”, adds Jean-Noël Thépaut. Clearly, the rise of 1.5°C on a planetary scale could be reached well before the end of the century, without a rapid curb on greenhouse gas emissions.
As a result, although the area of Arctic ice, at 7.1 million km2 measured in October 2022, ranks only eighth in the lowest years, this is not a cause for celebration. “We tend, wrongly, to get used to the systematic loss of sea ice, if a record is not broken. What will happen when the recurring climatic phenomenon El Niño, which tends to warm the average temperature of the planet, manifests itself?, asks Jean-Noël Thépaut. For now, the opposite phenomenon (La Niña), is observed for the third consecutive year.