The first week of January breaks heat records in much of Europe

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  Helen Ekker

  Climate and Energy editor

The first week of the new year is extremely hot in almost all of Europe. Much of the United States has been affected by exceptional winter coldnow across the ocean, heat records have been broken in many European countries.

The records themselves aren’t great, but they’re usually in tenths of grades. This week, records were shattered by several whole degrees in places.

Temperatures 10 to nearly 20 degrees above normal have led to thousands of records being broken this week. It raises the question of whether weather phenomena in the US and Europe are related and what role climate change plays. One thing is certain, says Peter Siegmund from the KNMI: “The wind plays a decisive role in both. In the USA the wind came from the cold North Pole region, with us the wind came from the warm southwest.”

The cold in the US might have been even more extreme in the past, Siegmund says. The Arctic since the beginning of the measurements it has in fact warmed up more. Also, of all seasons, winter in the Arctic is warming the fastest. For the same reason, the coldest days of winter warm up more than the average winter temperature.

The fact that so many heat records are being broken in Europe is partly due to climate change and partly due to chance. The Northern Hemisphere has become an average of one and a half degrees warmer since the turn of the last century. Local weather conditions can also add quite a bit. This week, for example, there was a dry wind in the Alps, a draft that brings additional heat.

Climate scientists and meteorologists from around the world express their surprise at the high temperatures. In some countries, temperatures were similar to those of the summer months. But there doesn’t seem to be a link to the cold in the US. “I don’t think it’s likely that these weather phenomena are related,” says Siegmund.

According to NOS meteorologist Marco Verhoef, relatively warm weather in Europe will continue for now. But not everywhere, because it’s cold in Scandinavia and certainly also in Moscow. In the Russian capital on weekends it can reach -20 degrees. In Western Europe, according to Verhoef, the weekend will be a little less hot, but then there will be another strong southwest wind which will certainly bring high temperatures until next Friday.

Winters in Europe are getting shorter anyway, says Siegmund. “Every year, almost a day leaves winter.” Autumn ends a little later and spring starts earlier. The time removed at the end of winter is on average longer than at the beginning. This is due to the sun, which is already more powerful in March than in autumn. The impact of the sun is particularly strong in snowy areas.

Once the snow is gone, the air above warms up even faster, because sunlight is no longer reflected off the white snow. As a result, ski resorts are located higher and higher in the mountains. Siegmund: “Since a mountain has a somewhat pyramidal shape, the ski areas shrink relatively quickly. The area between, for example, an altitude of 1000 and 1100 meters is simply much larger than the area between 1500 and 1600 of altitude”.

first this week temperatures above 20 degrees have been measured in northern Switzerland. A fault in the Alps could cause snow this weekend. As a result, the snowline will drop to around 1200 meters, thinks Marco Verhoef. “But for the snow-covered slopes in the valleys, the drama of little snow will continue for the moment”.

Even in the Netherlands it will remain too mild for the time of year for the time being. In our country the wind comes less and less often from the north-east, which is usually the cause of the cold in the Netherlands. Instead the wind blows more often from the west. This is because the pressure difference between the subtropics and the Arctic is increasing.

Why this is, is not yet clear to climate scientists. It does mean, however, that winters in Western Europe are getting wetter, with more rain and less snow.