Greece has experienced the warmest winter on record this year according to preliminary data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) analyzed by the scientific team of meteo.gr.
Specifically, the 2023-2024 winter, lasting from December 2023 to February 2024, in Greece was marked by extended periods of high temperatures, significantly surpassing seasonal norms.
Meteo reports that the winter of 2023-2024 was recorded as the warmest in Greek history, surpassing the winter of 2015-2016.
The average maximum temperature in Greece during the winter period has risen by 1.8°C from 1960 to 2024.
In Northern Greece, the average maximum temperature for the winter of 2023-2024 ranged 2 to 3°C above the mean of the 1991-2020 period, while in the rest of the country, it ranged 1 to 2°C higher.
In no part of Greece did the deviation of the average maximum temperature fall below +0.5°C.
Warmest winter around the globe
According to C3S, January 2024 was the warmest January on record globally with an average surface air temperature of 13.14°C, which was 0.70°C above the 1991-2020 average for January and 0.12°C above the temperature of the previous warmest January in 2020.
The month was 1.66°C warmer than an estimate of the January average for 1850-1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period.
European temperatures varied in January 2024 from much below the 1991-2020 average over the Nordic countries to much above average over the south of the continent.
Outside Europe, temperatures were well above average over eastern Canada, north-western Africa, the Middle East, and central Asia, and below average over western Canada, the central US, and most of eastern Siberia.
Last month was the warmest February on record in England and Wales, the Met Office national weather service said on Friday, pointing to the impact of human-induced climate change on winter temperatures in Britain.
England’s average temperature last month was 7.5°C, topping a record of 7°C set in 1990. In Wales, the average temperature of 6.9°C in February was slightly ahead of a 1998 record.
The Met Office said in January that the UK experienced its second-warmest year on record in 2023 just behind 2022.
The agency said it was seeing a clear trend of warming winter temperatures and predicted it would continue due to the impact of human-induced climate change.
Earth’s temperature warmest on record in 2023
Earth’s average surface temperature in 2023 was the warmest on record, according to an analysis by NASA. Global temperatures last year were around 1.2°C above the average for NASA’s baseline period (1951-1980), scientists from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York reported in early January.
“NASA and NOAA’s global temperature report confirms what billions of people around the world experienced last year; we are facing a climate crisis,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
“From extreme heat, to wildfires, to rising sea levels, we can see our Earth is changing,” Nelson said.
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