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The EU's official weather service said temperatures this winter were the highest on record. /Emmanuele Contini/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Temperatures across Europe this winter have spiked to the highest levels since records began, the European Union's climate monitor agency revealed on Thursday.
According to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the average temperature in the continent for December 2019 to February 2020 rose by 3.4 degrees Celcius, compared with the average winter temperature between 1981 and 2010.
The temperature also exceeded that of the previous warmest winter, in 2015-16, by almost 1.4 degrees Celcius.
In its report, Copernicus noted: "Temperatures in February 2020 were above the 1981-2010 average over almost all of Europe.
"They were extremely high for the time of year in the East, in a region extending southward from southern Finland to northern Ukraine and eastward over Russia."
It, however, pointed out that European-average temperature anomalies were generally larger and more variable than global anomalies, especially in winter, when they can change by several degrees from one month to the next.
The mild weather for the first time led to the complete failure of Germany's harvest of ice wine, which requires low temperatures for the grapes to freeze.
Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU's official weather service, said: "Seeing such a warm winter is disconcerting, but does not represent a climate trend as such. Seasonal temperatures, especially outside the tropics vary significantly from year to year."
Major regions of the world have recently witnessed substantially warmer than average temperatures. /Copernicus Climate Change Service/ECMWF
The anomaly was not just concentrated in Europe but stretched as far as Russia. Other regions around the globe that witnessed substantially warmer-than-average temperatures included Africa, Iran, Afghanistan, and much of China, with smaller pockets in North and South America, central and southern Africa and Western Australia.
The C3S, which was implemented by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) on behalf of the European Commission, routinely publishes monthly climate bulletins reporting on the changes observed in global surface air temperature, sea ice cover and hydrological variables.
The findings are based on computer-generated analyses using data collated from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations deployed in different parts of the world.
Stressing the importance of the C3S, Mauro Facchini, who leads the Copernicus unit at the EU Commission, said: "Now more than ever, the role of Copernicus is becoming more important.
"The European Commission relies on programs like Copernicus and institutions like the ECMWF to provide quality-assured operational data to support the development of a climate-resilient society."
