A heat wave near the Arctic, a warmer Mediterranean and wildfires and floods across Europe were part of a year of extremes in 2025, further evidence of how human activity is changing the continent’s climate, European scientists said in a report on Wednesday.
At least 95 percent of Europe had above-average annual temperatures in 2025, according to the report. Wildfires burned more than a million hectares of land, the most on record. Glaciers lost mass and snow cover was below average. According to scientific consensus, these are all consequences of global warming, mainly driven by the burning of coal, oil and gas.
“Europe is the fastest-warming continent, and the impacts are already severe,” said Florian Pappenberger, the director general of the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which produced the annual European State of the Climate report along with the World Meteorological Organization. More than 100 scientists contributed to the study.
Europe has warmed about twice as fast as the world as a whole, with the average temperature on the continent rising by 0.56 degrees Celsius, about 1 degree Fahrenheit, over the last 30 years, compared to 0.27 degrees Celsius globally, according to the report.
Europe’s proximity to the Arctic, the fastest-warming region on Earth, has made it more vulnerable, said Liz Bentley, the head of Britain’s Royal Meteorological Society, who studied the report but did not contribute to it.
“Each year we see more records being broken and more extreme weather events as our climate continues to warm,” she wrote in an email. “The amplified warming in the Arctic is of concern not just for the Arctic region but for the rest of the world.”
Temperatures in the Arctic have risen by 0.75 degrees Celsius in the last 30 years. In 2025, the Greenland ice sheet lost more ice, by volume, than is contained in all the glaciers in the European Alps, and Iceland’s glaciers recorded their second-largest loss of mass on record, according to the report.
That has profound consequences beyond the Arctic. Ice melt contributes to rising sea levels and also heats up the planet faster because less snow and ice means that less sunlight is reflected back into the atmosphere.
The continent is also experiencing freezing temperatures less frequently, the report found. In July, parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland saw a record three-week heat wave. Separately, even inside the Arctic Circle, there were days when temperatures exceeded 30 degrees Celsius.
Rising temperatures affected many river basins in the continent. In May, more than half of Europe experienced drought conditions. About 70 percent of its rivers had below-average annual flow, and it was one of the three driest years for soil moisture since 1992, according to the report.
European sea surface temperatures were the highest on record for the fourth consecutive year, with a “strong” marine heat wave recorded in the Mediterranean and a “severe” one in the Norwegian Sea, the report found.
The report “paints a stark picture,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. “The pace of climate change demands more urgent action.”
- Credits: The New York Times
- Author: Lynsey Chutel
- Photo: Ilvy Njiokiktjien
