The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed today that a new temperature record was reached in Europe a couple of summers ago. It was on the island of Sicily (Italy), where the thermometer rose to 48.8 degrees Celsius on August 11, 2021. The finding was published this week in the International Journal of Climatology.
An international panel of atmospheric scientists verified the temperature recorded by an automated weather station in Syracuse, on the Italian island of Sicily (Sicily). The previous record had been established on July 10, 1977, in the Greek cities of Athens and Elefsina, although on that occasion the only source was measurements from official Greek entities and there was no independent evaluation, as in the record announced today .
It should be noted that WMO Region VI (Europe) includes not only countries of the Old Continent, but also parts of Asia (for example, Israel, Turkey and Syria). “These data are 'snapshots' of our current climate. It is possible, even likely, that more extreme temperatures will occur across Europe in the future. When such observations are made, new WMO assessment committees will be formed to consider them extreme,” said Professor Randall Cerveny, WMO Climate and Extreme Weather Rapporteur. It is even possible that they have already occurred, since this record dates back to August 2021, and the last two summers have been as warm or warmer than that one.
“Most investigations – like this one – are lengthy procedures due to the meticulous care that the WMO takes when certifying meteorological observations. Such thorough evaluation provides critical confidence that our global temperature records are being measured correctly. Beyond that, this research demonstrates the alarming trend of high temperature records continuing to be set in specific regions of the world,” concludes Professor Cerveny.
