Europeans have been worried for months about a freezing winter this year because of an energy crisis sparked by Russia’s war in Ukraine. They didn’t expect a heat wave.
Weather stations across Europe recorded their hottest January temperatures on record on the first day of the year.
According to Maximiliano Herrera, a climatologist who tracks extreme temperatures around the world, nearly a thousand records were recorded in Germany in the first few days of the year alone. Thousands of people fell elsewhere across the continent.
The scope and intensity of the warm spell make it “probably one of the strongest ever recorded,” Herrera said in a message to E&E News.
At least 15 countries in Europe have seen record-breaking temperatures in the past week. The hardest-hit areas stretch from France to Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. Luxembourg, Poland and Belarus also recorded declines.
Temperatures were unusually “unprecedented,” Herrera said, with some stations seeing temperatures above the July average. Warsaw, Poland, which holds a 200-year climate record, broke its January temperature record, rising by more than 5 degrees Celsius.
warm air mass Crossing Europe from the west coast of Africa Bring unnatural weather.
London-based meteorologist Scott Duncan said a combination of factors could have contributed to the disturbingly high temperatures. The ongoing La Niña phenomenon is still affecting extreme weather around the world. Parts of the North Pacific and the Mediterranean were also unusually warm, which could raise temperatures in Europe.
Climate change is steadily raising global temperatures, making extreme heat both easier and more severe.
“Our warming atmosphere and oceans ultimately made it easier to break temperature records and certainly played a role,” Duncan said in an email.
A blessing in disguise?
Warmer weather is a reminder of the ominous effects of climate change. This year, however, it has also given the EU some relief from a punitive energy crunch that has sent heating bills soaring in homes and industry.
Higher temperatures — combined with reduced consumption and alternative energy sources — have helped reduce demand for and prices for natural gas. Prices fell to around 70 euros per megawatt-hour on Wednesday, the lowest level since before Russia invaded Ukraine last February and sent fuel markets into turmoil.
Lower demand also allows countries to refill their gas storage facilities, which could help ease fears of supply shortages next winter.
Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a natural gas expert at Columbia University’s Center for Global Energy Policy, said that if inventories are high by the end of winter, countries will need to reduce gas imports during the summer, easing pressure on the market.
Despite the rosy outlook, some leaders continue to push citizens to conserve energy. The winter heatwave has also raised concerns among Europeans, who tend to be aware of climate change.
“It’s great to be in the sun and eat ice cream in December, but people are really realizing now that it’s not normal,” Corbeau said.
The latest weather events come after summer extremes boost energy demand as the EU looks for alternatives to Russia’s fossil fuels (Climate Line21 August 2022).
It can also have a knock-on effect. Ski resorts in the Alps, for example, have had little to no snow and some had to close before the start of the ski season, said Luca Bergamaschi, director of international politics at ECCO, an Italian climate change think tank.
“The problem is, everyone knows it’s not just a winter, but it could be more normal. All of a sudden, businesses and countries find themselves unprepared for it,” he said.
walk the tightrope
Gas demand was already falling ahead of the heat wave, thanks to a European Union campaign to reduce energy use through a combination of conservation measures and alternative fuels, including coal. Meanwhile, LNG imports from the U.S. and elsewhere roughly doubled in 2022, partially compensating for the loss of Russian gas.
“Markets have done very well in bringing the necessary supply to Europe during the crisis and making sure no one is forced to shut down,” said Georg Zachmann, a senior fellow at Brussels-based think tank Bruegel. Relax, and we’re seeing that translate into a relaxation of our pricing as well.”
But Europe’s troubles are not over.
Russia’s gas imports will be much lower than last year, meaning the EU will need to continue finding alternative sources while reducing energy use and developing wind and solar power.
Although natural gas prices have fallen sharply, they are still five times higher than the 10-year average and well above US prices.
If China’s economy heats up in 2023, or if Japan suffers a cold snap, increased competition for gas could pull LNG away from Europe, creating a supply shortage.
“It’s going to be a tightrope walk for a long time, because essentially every project that could break could put us back in crisis mode,” Zachmann said.
It also means that the EU’s largest energy user may increase supply.
Germany – Europe’s largest economy – invested in liquefied natural gas terminals to boost imports and restarted some coal-fired power plants while delaying the decommissioning of others.
Climate activists have questioned the need for such infrastructure expansion. Others said the moves were part of a broader effort to diversify Germany’s gas supplies and build some buffers for the system to make it more resilient to future energy shocks.
demand transfer
At the same time, climate-related extreme events are projected to intensify.
Warm winters are likely to become more frequent and severe in the future. Overall, winters are warming across Europe, said Freja Vamborg, a senior scientist at the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
In the long run, this means that energy demand may be reduced during the colder months. But Europe’s notoriously mild summers are also getting hotter and more prone to extreme heat.
one A recent study found that the frequency of heat waves in Western Europe increased three times faster than elsewhere in the mid-latitudes, and that they intensified about four times faster than in mid-latitudes.
As a result, high electricity demand in parts of the continent may shift from winter to summer over the next decade.one Study in 2017 The survey of 35 countries found that under a relatively mild climate scenario, energy demand in southern Europe is likely to increase overall, while northern regions are likely to decrease.
Other studies have come to similar conclusions. In a milder future climate scenario, overall energy demand may not change throughout the year, but summer could become the period of greatest stress on Europe’s energy infrastructure.
“We still have the same problems we had before,” says Columbia’s Corbeau. “Well, it’s a little bit better, but it’s not like, ‘Oh, now we’re fine.'” No, we’re not. “
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