According to a report from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the climate crisis had "frightening" impacts in Europe last year, with heatwaves killing more than 20,000 people and drought withering crops.
It stated that drought was already guaranteed for many farmers in 2023 and the only way to limit the rising damages of global heating was to rapidly cut carbon emissions.
The report said widespread heatwaves have led to Europe suffering its hottest summer on record in 2022, by a large margin. These would have been virtually impossible without global heating and led to premature deaths.
People in southern Europe endured 70-100 days of heat stress, where the temperature felt like at least 32°c, accounting for wind and other factors. In the UK temperatures passed 40°c for the first time.
The report said that:
Overall Europe experienced it second-warmest year ever recorded, with temperatures rising at twice the global average rate, faster than on any other continent. Over the past five years, the average temperature has been 2.2°c higher than in the pre-industrial era.
One positive from the report was that Europe received its highest amount of solar radiation in 40 years, owing to lower cloud cover, enabling above-average levels of solar-power generation.
Mauro Facchini, head of earth observation at the European Commission, said: "The findings are frightening, I have to say, but I think we have to know the truth".
"We have more and more extreme events happening in Europe. Every one of us can witness that".
Carlo Buontempo, director of C3S, said "we are really moving into an uncharted territory" and the report should be seen as "yet another wake-up call to accelerate our efforts" to cut carbon emissions, which also hit record levels in 2022.
Scientists recently predicted that the imminent return of the El Niño climate phenomenon would cause global temperatures to rise "off the chart".
Dr Rebecca Emerton, the lead author of the C3S report, said: "We cannot stop these climate impacts – we can only limit [them] by reducing greenhouse gas emissions rapidly".
She said a dry winter and spring in 2023 meant more drought was on the way, and that "unfortunately, the impacts are probably already in place for the growing season, so we’re likely to see reduced crop production this year".
Without global heating, droughts such as the record northern hemisphere drought in 2022 would have been expected only once every four centuries.
Daniela Schmidt, Professor at the University of Bristol, said: "We are clearly not prepared for droughts like we have seen in the last year, given the losses in agriculture, scorched plants and fish in dwindling rivers. We need to invest to adapt".
The C3S report also examined the Arctic and said Greenland had experienced record-breaking ice-sheet melt during exceptional heatwaves in September, when average temperatures were up to 8°C higher than average.
