Experts at the Hamburg Extreme Weather Congress have warned of continued temperature increases in Germany. The German Weather Service (DWD) highlighted that the country’s average temperatures have risen significantly more than the global average over the past 140 years.
This has led to an unprecedented number of heat records, with nine of the ten warmest years occurring since 2000. The years 2022 and 2023 both saw new temperature records. Prolonged periods of daily highs reaching 30 degrees Celsius are now common in certain regions.
The ongoing rise in atmospheric CO2 levels is expected to further intensify these trends. The number of weather-related records has surged since 2023, coinciding with extreme events like wildfires in the USA and heavy rainfall and flooding in Central Europe.
Notably, the frost-free days at Germany’s highest peak, the Zugspitze, have dramatically increased to 66 this year from the previous record of 25 days. DWD board member Tobias Klein emphasized that while global warming continues unchecked, humanity can still mitigate and adapt to climate change.
However, the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement, seems increasingly unattainable. Frank Böttcher, chairman of the German Meteorological Society, expressed concern that the three-degree threshold might be reached as early as 2050. The congress underscored the urgency of addressing climate change to prevent further extreme weather events and mitigate their health and environmental impacts.
