Europe climate report signals rising extremes
Europe endured a historic heat wave across Nordic countries, shrinking glaciers, and record sea temperatures in 2025 as the fast-warming continent faces more frequent climate extremes, a new report showed on Wednesday.
“The climate indicators … are quite worrying,” Mauro Facchini, a European Commission official, told journalists.
The European State of the Climate report underscores the urgent need for the region to adapt to global warming and accelerate its transition to clean energy, another European Union (EU) official said.
Among the key findings of the report published by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO):
At least 95 percent of the region experienced above-average annual temperatures, with Britain, Norway, and Iceland recording their warmest year on record, according to the report.
“Since 1980, Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average, making it the fastest warming continent on Earth,” WMO Secretary General Celeste Saulo said in a briefing on the report.
Strong heat stress
Sub-Arctic Finland, Norway, and Sweden—a region dubbed Fennoscandia—experienced a record three-week heat wave in July, with temperatures reaching 30 degrees Celsius within the Arctic Circle.
Parts of Fennoscandia had almost two weeks of “strong heat stress”—when temperatures feel hotter than 32 C. In an average year, the region will normally have up to two days of strong heat stress.
In Turkiye, temperatures reached 50 C for the first time in July while 85 percent of the Greek population was affected by extreme temperatures close to or above 40 C.
Large parts of western and southern Europe were hit with two significant heat waves in June, including most of Spain, Portugal, France, and southern parts of Britain.
A third major heat wave struck Portugal, Spain, and France in August.
Melting glaciers
Glaciers across Europe recorded a net mass loss in 2025, with Iceland experiencing its second-largest ever melt.
The Greenland Ice Sheet lost round 139 billion tons of ice—“equivalent to losing 100 Olympic-sized swimming pools every single hour,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which operates Copernicus.
Europe’s snow cover, meanwhile, was the third lowest on record.
Europe’s annual sea surface temperature was the highest on record for the fourth consecutive year.
The area burnt by wildfires, meanwhile, reached a record 1,034,550 hectares.
