Consequences of global warming in Europe

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Satellite photo of Europe .

The consequences of global warming in Europe are among the regional effects of global warming on society, health, nature and in technical matters, which are noticeable in the rise in average temperatures. As a result, more catastrophes such as floods and storms can be triggered in the future.

Observed climate change

The average temperatures for the period 2002–2011 were 1.3 ° C above those for the period 1850–1899. Between 1979 and 2005 the warming trend was 0.41 ° C per decade and was thus significantly higher than the global mean of + 0.17 ° C per decade. The warming was particularly strong in Central and Northeastern Europe and in mountainous regions . It was also observed that winter temperatures rise more than summer temperatures. In Europe there was the warmest winter 2019/20 with 3.4 ° C above the average measured temperature from 1981 to 2010.

The precipitation trends are spatially more variable. In Northern Europe, an increase in average winter precipitation was observed. In the Mediterranean , a decrease was noted in the east, while no significant changes in rainfall were noted in the west. In most of Europe, rainfall per rainy day is increasing, even in areas where total rainfall is decreasing. In Greece, for example, a significant decrease in the amount of precipitation in January was observed, which is associated with an increase in heavy precipitation.

Changed occurrence of extreme heat and cold events

Deviations from the mean temperature in the exceptional European summer 2003.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) at the UN climate conference in Montréal in 2005, the warming of the global climate is not only causing deaths in developing countries, but is also increasingly endangering Europe. The 2003 European heat wave claimed 35,000 lives and caused economic damage of € 14 billion .

While a single event like this can never be directly attributed to global warming, climate change increases the likelihood of such extreme events. According to the forecasts of the IPCC , there will be very likely (90–99%) higher maximum temperatures and more hot days in almost all land areas in the 21st century. An assessment carried out in the aftermath of the 2003 heat wave came to the conclusion that human influence on the climate had at least doubled the risk of such an event.

At the same time, extreme cold events will likely become less frequent. A study commissioned by the WWF and carried out by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy indicates that by 2100 the number of heat deaths in Germany could increase by an additional 5,000 without taking demographic development into account, or by 12,000 if the changed age structures are taken into account. At the same time, there would be a decrease in cold deaths by 3000 and 5000 respectively. For Great Britain , a study by the Ministry of Health indicated an opposite effect, namely a larger decrease in deaths from cold compared to a smaller increase in deaths from heat.

Changes in temperature extremes can be demonstrated throughout Europe in series of measurements. Between 1950 and 2018, the number of extremely hot days across Europe tripled and the number of extremely cold days reduced to a third. Taking into account humidity, which is one of the factors determining the influence of heat on human health, the number of days that cause heat stress also increased threefold. The maximum temperatures rose by 2.3 ° C, the minimum by about 3 ° C. The extreme values ​​changed more than the mean temperatures. In Central Europe, the summer peak values ​​rose faster than the mean summer temperatures, by around 50%.

Floods on rivers

Climate change accelerates the water cycle and thus influences the intensity, frequency and timing of flood events.

When analyzing observed changes in the intensity of flood events, the influence of climate change must be differentiated from other influences, such as changes in land use in the catchment area or changes in river beds . For the period 1960–2010, significant changes in the flow rates were observed in many European rivers during floods. In north-western Europe, especially in northern Britain, they have increased as a result of increasing autumn and winter rainfall. In rivers with a larger catchment area in southern Europe, a decrease was observed, which is likely due to decreasing rainfall and increasing evaporation . For smaller rivers in the Mediterranean, however, there is a risk that the extent of flood events will increase. The decrease observed in Eastern Europe is probably due to the lower snow cover due to higher temperatures. The changes in Europe roughly coincide with model projections and are likely to be largely the result of current climate change.

From 960 to 2010, climate change significantly changed the point in time when flood events occur: In north-eastern Europe, including large parts of Scandinavia, the snowmelt and thus floods set in about a month earlier due to higher temperatures. In Western Europe, i.e. H. In the western part of the Iberian Peninsula, western France and the southwest of Britain, soil moisture reaches its maximum values ​​earlier in the year, and floods also occur earlier there. Around the North Sea - in north and south-east Britain, western Norway, Denmark and northern Germany - and also in regions on the Mediterranean, however, the occurrence of flood events has been delayed because winter storms occur later there.

In 2020, a reconstruction of the flood events of the past 500 years based on historical documents was published. The period from 1990 onwards is one of the nine periods with the largest flood anomalies. The current period, however, is unusual in comparison to the previous ones: while in the past periods with pronounced floods tended to occur in exceptionally cool episodes, the current period falls in an exceptionally warm period; it also shows a shift in the seasonality of flood events.

So-called floods of the century - i.e. events with runoff quantities that are expected once every hundred years with an unchanged climate - are expected more frequently in continental Europe in the future, but could also become rarer in parts of northern and southern Europe. One million people in Europe were affected by the 15 largest floods in 2002 , which claimed 250 lives (see also Floods in Central Europe 2002 ). For example, so-called Vb weather patterns , caused by an exceptionally warm Mediterranean Sea , ensure that particularly heavy snowfalls and subsequent spring floods occur north of the Alps in winter.

Ice-free Alps

Satellite image of the Alps .

In Europe, global glacier retreat affects the Alpine region in particular . A study of the development of 5,150 glaciers in the Alps since 1850 comes to the conclusion that by 1970 already 35% of the originally existing glacier area had disappeared, and that this shrinkage had increased to almost 50% by 2000. This means that half of the area formerly covered by glaciers has already been exposed by the retreat of the ice.

Scenarios for the 21st century indicate that with an average warming of 3 ° C by the year 2100, the glaciers of the Alps will have lost around 80% of the area still existing between 1971 and 1990. That would only correspond to a tenth of the extent of 1850. A warming of 5 ° C would practically lead to the complete loss of glacier ice.

Wood and peat finds from the moraines of glaciers in the Swiss Alps suggest that the glaciers in the Holocene sometimes receded significantly further than is currently the case. These findings indicate that there must have been at least twelve periods in Central Switzerland in the last 10,000 years with significantly lower glacier levels in some places, and that the glaciers were less than they are today during more than half of this time . Wood and peat can only have developed where the glaciers were not. Between 1900 and 2300 years ago, some of the glacier tongues were higher than they are today. It must therefore be assumed that the glaciers in the Alps are subject to much more dynamic changes than previously assumed.

The consequences of the retreat of the glaciers in the Alps became particularly visible in July 2006 through the rockfalls on the Swiss Eiger . More than 500,000 cubic meters of rock fell on the Lower Grindelwald Glacier on July 13, 2006 . In total, up to 2 million m 3 of rock with a weight of five million tons are considered to be at risk of falling. The cause of the terminations is u. a. the retreat of glaciers that supported overhanging, already loosened mountain slopes, and the thawing of constantly frozen areas ( permafrost ), in which fissured rock and debris were held together like glue by the ice.

Higher temperatures in the mountain regions of Europe contribute to the fact that more precipitation falls in the form of rain instead of snow and that the snow cover melts faster. Most of the studies on changes in snow cover show a decreasing trend at lower altitudes in the Alps, the Scandinavian mountains and the Pyrenees . (At higher altitudes and in the Carpathians , the picture is more inconsistent, but also mostly negative.) Snow protects the glaciers and permafrost from thawing through its insulating properties and the reflection of sunlight ( albedo ) and ensures mass influx in the glacier's nutrient areas. The decrease in snow cover therefore increases the decline in glaciers and permafrost. The maximum runoff of meltwater in the catchment area of the Alps will be premature, there is a threat of more hydrological extremes with consequences for agriculture and forestry, the use of hydropower and tourism.

The permafrost soils in the Alps are also melting. In Switzerland, about 6.6% of which is made up of permafrost soils, the lower limit of permafrost has risen by an estimated 150 to 250 m over the past 100 years. A temperature increase of 1 to 2 ° C by the middle of the 21st century would result in an increase in the lower limit of 200 to 750 m. This has many consequences. At the same time as the glacier retreats, large areas of heavily fractured material such as moraines, pebbles and rocks that were previously permanently frozen are exposed. The loosened rock mass can change into a slowly creeping movement on the mountain slope, and in the event of heavy rainfall this material can be mobilized again in the form of debris flows . This increases the risk of devastation along the stream channels down into the valleys. In addition, the ground instability increases, which destabilizes installations at great heights (such as cable cars, masts, etc.). Such installations will have to be secured in the future. The construction costs will therefore increase.

Colder winters

A study carried out at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research examined the consequences of further melting of Arctic sea ice in the Barents Sea using a climate model . A decrease in ice cover of 100% to 1% was simulated. The researchers found that the increasing temperature in the model leads to changes in the atmospheric pressure. As a result, the likelihood of severe winters in Europe triples. The relationship is pronounced and strongly non-linear. Loss of ice over the Barents Sea initially leads to warming, then to cooling and then to warming again.

Spreading and promoting diseases

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) assumes that, as a result of global warming, diseases could increasingly spread in Europe that were previously only imported (e.g. through tourism). The President of the Robert Koch Institute Jörg Hacker said on the connection between infectious diseases and climate change:

“A causal connection to the change in climate cannot always be proven, but such a connection is often suspected and needs to be specifically analyzed. [...] Even if many connections between the increased incidence of old and new infectious diseases and climate change cannot yet be proven in detail, the trends show that Germany has to adapt to this problem. "

According to a publication by the Hamburg Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine , vector-bound infectious diseases are particularly affected by environmental and climate changes. In the past and probably also in the future, ecological (non-climatic) and socio-economic factors are likely to be more important for the future spread of such diseases than climatic ones.

The following reasons, among others, can lead to an increased incidence of various diseases in Europe:

  • Higher temperatures promote the multiplication of pathogens in food.
  • Since 1975 the pollen flight times have increased by ten days, which has led to an extension of the annual hay fever phase for allergy sufferers .
  • Mild winters promote the survival of agricultural pests and disease carriers.
  • From the early 1980s to 2008, ticks spread further north in Sweden and to higher altitudes in the Czech Republic . They can transmit the causative agents of meningitis TBE (early summer meningoencephalitis) and Lyme borreliosis .
  • The risk of malaria spreading again in Western Europe is currently low, but increases with temperature. However, it does not only depend on the temperature or the weather, but mainly on hygienic conditions. The risk is also considered to be low due to the drainage of most of the European marshland.

Effects on European seas

Sea level rise and storm surges

The fourth assessment report of the IPCC assumes that the sea level will rise worldwide by 18 to 59 cm by 2100. With increasing storms at the same time , the risk of storm surges increases considerably. Since 1906 the North Sea has risen by 24.6 cm. Current dyke construction on the Lower Saxony coast is based on a water level that is 25 cm higher; a later increase of 1 m is taken into account in the planning. Critics see this as too little.

The current (2007) IPCC report assumes that the melting of the Greenland ice will cause the sea level to rise by 40 to 80 cm by the end of the 21st century. In the long term (several centuries or even millennia), with the complete melting of the Greenland ice, a rise in sea level of several meters is possible.

Consequences for the North Sea

In 2030, a new barrage in front of London is to replace the Thames Barrier shown in order to be armed against the expected rise in the water level.

According to the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven , the North Sea has become 1.2 ° C warmer since 1962. As a result, cold-loving fish have been moving further north for 25 years. The stocks of cod , haddock and 16 other species moved 100 km towards the pole. British researchers fear that commercially important fish species such as whiting and redfish will disappear from the North Sea as a result of global warming by 2050 .

Seals are also found with receding fur. In the north, more and more animal and plant species are found that were previously only found in more southern regions.

The warming of the North Sea is also endangering the base of the food chain . There are certain types of algae as primary producers . Copepods feed on the algae , which in turn are the main food of the juvenile fish of economically important species such as cod , herring and mackerel .

Consequences for the Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is particularly hard hit by climate change. If other oceans warmed up by 0.05 ° C per decade between 1861 and 2000, the water temperatures in the Baltic Sea rose by an average of 0.08 ° C. In the course of the 20th century, the Baltic Sea became warmer by around 0.85 ° C. By the end of the 21st century, the air is forecast to warm by 4 to 6 ° C in the northern and 3 to 5 ° C in the southern part of the Baltic Sea. This would be accompanied by a significant decrease in winter sea ice by up to 80% in the course of the 21st century, as well as an increase in algal blooms.

Changes in ocean currents

In connection with the current phenomenon of global warming, some scientists have expressed the fear that the North Atlantic drift could weaken or come to a complete standstill in the next 20–100 years. Due to the increased melting of the Greenland ice cap as well as an increased freshwater input from Siberian rivers due to changed precipitation distribution, the sinking mechanism of heavier, very salty surface water southwest of Greenland, described under thermohaline circulation , could be out of balance. This central drive for the entire Gulf Stream system could be significantly weakened by fresh water, which reduces the density of the seawater, and possibly result in a shift of the Gulf Stream (or at least the North Atlantic drift) or even come to a standstill.

This would have a climate change in Northern Europe with significant consequences, since Europe z. Due to the Gulf Stream, it has a much milder climate compared to latitudes in North America. It would be possible to reduce the average northern European temperature by up to 5 degrees Celsius. It is difficult to predict whether it will be cooler in Europe despite global warming or whether the two effects cancel each other out. Some scenarios suggest that temperatures in Europe will initially rise slightly and then fall permanently by up to 5 degrees Celsius below today's values.

Findings from sediment and ice cores suggest that similar events have happened several times in the past.

The reports published in recent years, according to which a very strong decline could already be measured, have not been confirmed in retrospect. Rather, a closer examination of the North Atlantic Current in recent years has made it clear that it is subject to strong natural fluctuations but has not shown any weakening tendencies so far.

literature

  • The European Environment Agency publishes a report every four years, here those from 2016 and 2008:
    • European Environment Agency (Ed.): Climate change, impacts and vulnerability in Europe 2016 (=  EEA Report . No. 1/2017 ). 2017, ISBN 978-92-9213-835-6 ( europa.eu ).
    • European Environment Agency (2008): Impacts of Europe's changing climate - 2008 indicator-based assessment . EEA Report No 4/2008, see online
  • European Academies Science Advisory Council (Ed.): The imperative of climate action to protect human health in Europe . 2019, ISBN 978-3-8047-4011-2 ( easac.eu [PDF]).
  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007): Report of Working Group II, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability , Chapter 12: Europe (PDF, 1.2 MB) (English)
  • Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (2005): Climate change in Germany - vulnerability and adaptation strategies of climate-sensitive systems on behalf of the Federal Environment Agency, long version (PDF, 11.2 MB) and short version (PDF, 0.2 MB)
  • Federal Environment Agency and Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (2006): Future Climate Changes in Germany - Regional Projections for the 21st Century , Background Paper, April (PDF, 0.08 MB) ( Memento from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

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  2. ↑ The boreal winter season 19/20 was by far the warmest winter season ever recorded in Europe. In: climate.copernicus.eu . March 4, 2020, accessed on March 14, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Data for Europe: warmest winter since records began. In: tagesschau.de . March 4, 2020, accessed March 14, 2020 .
  4. ↑ 3.4 degrees warmer than average - warmest winter in Europe since measurements began. In: srf.ch . March 5, 2020, accessed March 14, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007): Report of Working Group II, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability , Chapter 12: Europe (PDF, 1.2 MB) (English)
  6. ↑ C. Norrant, A. Douguédroit (2006): Monthly and daily precipitation trends in the Mediterranean , in: Theoretical and Applied Climatology ., Vol 83, pp 89-106, online
  7. ^ AH Fink, T. Brücher, A. Krüger, GC Leckebusch, JG Pinto, U. Ulbrich (2004): The 2003 European summer heatwaves and drought - Synoptic diagnosis and impact. , in: Weather, Vol. 59, pp. 209–216, see online (PDF)
  8. ↑ Stott, Peter A., ​​DA Stone and MR Allen (2004): Human contribution to the European heatwave of 2003 , in: Nature , 432, pp. 610-614, see abstract online
  9. ↑ WWF & IfW (2007): Costs of Climate Change - The Effect of Rising Temperatures on Health and Performance. (PDF, 5.1 MB)
  10. ^ Department of Health and Health Protection Agency: Health effects of climate change in the UK 2008: an update of the Department of Health report 2001/2002 , 2008, see online , see also BBC: Global warming "may cut deaths"
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  14. ↑ Günter Blöschl u. a .: Changing climate shifts timing of European floods . In: Science . tape 357 , 2017, doi : 10.1126 / science.aan2506 .
  15. ↑ Günter Blöschl, Andrea Kiss, Alberto Viglione, Mariano Barriendos, Oliver Böhm, Rudolf Brázdil, Denis Coeur, Gaston Demarée, Maria Carmen Llasat, Neil Macdonald, Dag Retsö, Lars Roald, Petra Schmocker-Fackel, Inês Amorim, Monika Bělínová, Gerardo Benito, Chiara Bertolin, Dario Camuffo, Daniel Cornel, Radosław Doktor, Líbor Elleder, Silvia Enzi, João Carlos Garcia, Rüdiger Glaser , Julia Hall, Klaus Haslinger, Michael Hofstätter, Jürgen Komma, Danuta Limanówka, David Lun, Andrei Panin, Juraj Parajka , Hrvoje Petrić, Fernando S. Rodrigo, Christian Rohr, Johannes Schönbein, Lothar Schulte, Luís Pedro Silva, Willem HJ Toonen, Peter Valent, Jürgen Waser, Oliver Wetter: Current European flood-rich period exceptional compared with past 500 years . In: Nature . July 2020, doi : 10.1038 / s41586-020-2478-3 . See also: Nadja Podbregar: Europe: Floods are different today - data from 500 years show fundamental changes in timing and conditions. In: scinexx.de. Retrieved August 1, 2020 .
  16. ↑ RS Kovats, R. Valentini, L M. Bouwer, E. Georgopoulou, D. Jacob, E. Martin, M. Rounsevell, J.-F. Soussana et al. a .: Europe . In: Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part B: Regional Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . S. 1279 .
  17. ↑ Zemp, Michael (2006): Glaciers and climate change - Spatio-temporal analysis of glacier fluctuations in the European Alps after 1850. PhD thesis, University of Zurich, 201 pages (PDF, 7.4 MB) ( Memento from February 21 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ^ Zemp, Michael, W. Haeberli, M. Hoelzle and F. Paul (2006): Alpine glaciers to disappear within decades? In: Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L13504. See also the press release online .
  19. ↑ Schlüchter C., et al. Alps without glaciers? . Die Alpen 6, 34–44 (2004) (PDF) ( Memento from March 1, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
  20. ^ Hormes, A., Müller, B. Schlüchter, Ch. 2001. The Alps with little ice: evidence for eight Holocene phases of reduced glacier extent in the Central Swiss Alps . The Holocene 11, 255-265.
  21. ↑ Joerin UE, Stocker TF, Schlüchter C. 2006 Multicentury glacier fluctuations in the Swiss Alps during the Holocene . The Holocene 16, 697-704.
  22. ↑ Martin Beniston et al: The European mountain cryosphere: a review of its current state, trends, and future challenges . In: The Cryosphere . tape 12 , 2018, doi : 10.5194 / tc-12-759-2018 .
  23. ↑ Haeberli, Wilfried et al. (1999), Ice Shrinkage and Natural Disasters in the High Mountains from NRP 31
  24. ↑ PIK Potsdam: Global warming could make winter colder
  25. ↑ Jörg Hacker, Klaus Stark and Matthias Niederig from the Robert Koch Institute, Berlin: The effects of climate change: which new diseases and health problems can be expected?  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. dated April 3, 2008@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.rki.de  
  26. ↑ Ebert, B. and B. Fleischer (2005): Global Warming and Spread of Infectious Diseases , in: Bundesgesundheitsblatt , No. 48, pp. 55–62, doi: 10.1007 / s00103-004-0968-3 (PDF) ( Memento of the original dated February 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rki.de
  27. ↑ Michaela Schulz: University publication by Schulz, Michaela. Retrieved June 22, 2019 ( Studies on the seasonal population dynamics of Ixodes ricinus (Ixodidae) ).
  28. ↑ Thomas GT Jaenson, David GE Jaenson, Lars iron, Erik Petersson, Elisabet Lindgren: Changes in the geographical distribution and abundance of the tick Ixodes ricinus during the past 30 years in Sweden . In: Parasites & Vectors . tape 5 , no. 1 , January 10, 2012, ISSN  1756-3305 , p. 8 , doi : 10.1186 / 1756-3305-5-8 .
  29. ↑ Martens, P., RS Kovats, S. Nijhof, P. de Vries, MTJ Livermore, DJ Bradley, J. Cox and AJ McMichael (1999): Climate change and future populations at risk of malaria , in: Global Environmental Change, Volume 9, Supplement 1, October, pp. S89-S107 doi: 10.1016 / S0959-3780 (99) 00020-5
  30. ^ Reiter P. From Shakespeare to Defoe: Malaria in England in the Little Ice Age , Emerging Infectious Diseases , Vol. 6, pp. 1–11, Volume 6, Number 1– February 2000 , direct link to PDF doi: eid0601.000101
  31. ↑ P. Reiter: From Shakespeare to Defoe: Malaria in England in the Little Ice Age - Volume 6, Number 1 — February 2000 - Emerging Infectious Diseases journal - CDC . doi : 10.3201 / eid0601.000101 ( cdc.gov [accessed June 22, 2019]).
  32. ↑ Nds. State agency for water management, coastal and nature conservation
  33. ↑ Der Spiegel: Coastal Protection: Battle for the Dikes of January 18, 2007
  34. ^ The BACC Author Team: Assessment of Climate Change for the Baltic Sea Basin. Springer Verlag, Regional Climate Studies, 2008, ISBN 978-3-540-72785-9 , see also the articles on FAZ online and the Netzeitung ( Memento from March 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  35. ↑ Michael E. Schlesinger , Jianjun Yin, Gary Yohe, Natalia G. Andronova, Sergey Malyshev and Bin Li: Assessing the Risk of a Collapse of the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation ; Richard Wood, Matthew Collins, Jonathan Gregory, Glen Harris and Michael Vellinga: Towards a Risk Assessment for Shutdown of the Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation , both in: Hans Joachim Schellnhuber et al .: Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change. ( Memento of the original from July 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2006. ISBN 0-521-86471-2 (English)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.defra.gov.uk
  36. ↑ Rahmstorf, Stefan: The world goes roller coaster , in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 3./4. July 1999
  37. ↑ IFM-GEOMAR (2007): How does the Gulf Stream react to climate change? New findings from a 10-year study in the subpolar North Atlantic . ( Memento of the original from April 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Press release from March 16 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ifm-geomar.de