2021 was the fifth hottest year on record on the planet

Scientists have revealed that 2021 is the fifth hottest year on record, as emissions of greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane – the main drivers of the climate crisis – continue to rise.

The European Union’s C3S (Copernicus Climate Change Service) annual analysis also found that the seven warmest years on record were the last seven, by a clear margin.

While 2021 was one of the coldest years in the past seven years (along with 2015 and 2018), Europe still experienced its hottest summer on record, according to the report released on Monday. 2020 and 2016 remain tied as the hottest years on record.

The lower average temperature was partly due to La Niña conditions in the early months of 2021, a weather phenomenon that causes cooler waters in the Pacific Ocean.

The global average annual temperature was 1.1 to 1.2°C higher than at the start of the industrial era in the mid-19th century.

The adverse effects of rising temperatures were evident in the number of extreme weather events around the world over the past 12 months. The summer of 2021 brought heat waves and deadly floods to central Europe, severely affecting Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

In Sicily, a temperature of 119.8° Farenheit (48.8° Celsius), which exceeded the European record of 33° Farenheit (0.8° Celsius), was recorded during a prolonged heat wave in Greece , Spain and Italy.

Intense heat and arid conditions have created a powder keg, sparking massive fires across the central and eastern Mediterranean, with devastating consequences for Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, l Albania, North Macedonia, Algeria and Tunisia.

Parts of North America also experienced significant temperature anomalies in 2021, resulting in the hottest June on record for the continent. In the northwestern United States and Canada, an “exceptional” heat wave hit, with maximum temperature records broken several times on consecutive days.

The small Canadian town of Lytton, British Columbia reached 121.2 degrees Fahrenheit (49.6 degrees Celsius) in June, breaking the temperature record in Canada. An international team of climatologists concluded this record heat would have been “virtually impossible” without human-caused global warming.

Hot, dry conditions fueled wildfires throughout the summer. The Dixie Fire, the second largest fire in California history, became the first to reach the top of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Along with the widespread destruction, pollution from the wildfires led to lower air quality for thousands of people in the West and beyond, as particles drifted across the United States.

“2021 has been another year of extreme temperatures, with the hottest summer in Europe, heat waves in the Mediterranean, not to mention unprecedented high temperatures in North America,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of C3S .

“The past seven years have been the seven hottest on record. These events are a clear reminder of the need to change our habits, to take decisive and effective action towards a sustainable society and to work towards reducing net carbon emissions.

However, despite a temporary dip due to the Covid-19 pandemic, global carbon dioxide concentrations continue to rise steadily, according to a preliminary analysis of satellite data.

Concentrations of the potent greenhouse gas methane are increasing “very substantially”, the C3S scientists noted, and have increased slightly from the 2020 growth rate.

Climate experts noted that the figures for 2020 and 2021 were “very high” compared to methane levels from the previous two decades, explaining “why this is not yet fully understood”.

“Identifying the source of the increase is difficult, as methane has many sources, some anthropogenic (e.g. oil and gas field operations), but also some natural or semi-natural (e.g. wetlands),” the agency’s report noted.

Wildfires around the world, but especially those in Siberia, have added to the carbon released into the atmosphere. North America has seen the highest level of carbon emissions from summer wildfires since records began in 2003.

“It becomes difficult to say something new every time we see signs of another nail in the planetary coffin!” Professor Sir Brian Hoskins, chair of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London, wrote in a statement.

“Yet another warning of what we are doing to our planetary home. Real action is desperately needed to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions in the UK and around the world.”

To stabilize the Earth’s temperature and prevent a further escalation of climate disasters, nations have pledged to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. This means that greenhouse gas emissions, largely caused by the burning of fuels fossils, are expected to be reduced by about 50% by 2050. the end of this decade.

The annual C3S report on the state of the climate in Europe will be published in April 2022.