Copernicus: Western Europe Records Hottest June–July on Record at 21.62°C

What is Copernicus and how far back do its records go?

Copernicus is the European Union's Earth observation and monitoring programme, coordinated by the European Commission in partnership with the European Space Agency; its Climate Change Service (C3S) is operated by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and publishes a monthly climate bulletin 20 minutos,Fanpage,Il Fatto Quotidiano. The dataset used for these comparisons goes back to 1950, with some earlier data also available DIE WELT.

How can western Europe set a record while Europe overall ranked only 11th warmest?

Copernicus described a pronounced temperature gradient running from western Europe toward eastern Europe and Scandinavia, where conditions were considerably cooler T-online.de,tagesschau.de,newsORF.at. As a result, the continent-wide July average of 20.49°C ranked only 11th, even as the western region set a June–July record Bild,Spiegel Online. Within Germany, for example, the data showed the southwest was markedly warmer than the northeast N-tv,Spiegel Online.

How have scientists characterised the findings?

Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, told reporters: "We have not known such a climate in our lifetime and perhaps not even since the dawn of our civilisation" Yahoo!,BFMTV. Copernicus also said the June–July figure reflects the "exceptional and persistent heat" seen across the summer so far, and noted that Europe is the fastest-warming continent Spiegel Online,En Son Haber.