The summer of 2024 was the hottest on record in Greece, according to the preliminary data from the Meteo weather service of the National Observatory of Athens.
The nation surpassed the previous milestone by one degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit). The season was characterized by prolonged heat waves across the country, with temperatures far exceeding normal seasonal levels.
June and July were the warmest months since records began in 1960, while August was the second hottest behind August 2021, the observatory said on its meteo.gr website.
The observatory said it made a preliminary conclusion drawing on data from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
It noted that on average, summer temperatures in Greece have risen by 2.3 Celsius between 1960 and 2024.
The agency noted that the 2023 winter was Greece’s warmest on record in March.
Combined with prolonged drought, Greece this summer was again hit by scores of wildfires, one of which burned through to the Athens suburbs in August, killing a woman trapped in a factory.
Observatory chairman Manolis Plionis said that the number of Greek wildfires this year — over 4,000 since May according to officials — was higher than the 20-year average.
Hottest summer across the world
According to Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, summer 2024 was the warmest across Europe at 1.54C above the 1991-2020 long-term average, exceeding the previous record from 2022. August was also the 13th month in a 14-month period where the global average temperature exceeded 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
So far this year the global average temperature has been 0.7C above the 1991-2020 average, which is the highest on record. It is therefore increasingly likely that 2024 will be the warmest year on record globally, according to Copernicus, the EU’s climate service.
The data on Greece followed a season of heatwaves around the world that scientists said were intensified by human-driven climate change.
The 2024 northern summer saw the highest global temperatures ever recorded, beating last year’s record, the EU’s climate monitor said on Friday.
“During the past three months of 2024, the globe has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day on record, and the hottest boreal summer on record,” Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, said in a report.
“This string of record temperatures is increasing the likelihood of 2024 being the hottest year on record. Temperature-related extreme events witnessed this summer will only become more intense”.
Across Europe, temperature records have been broken over the summer. Austria had their warmest on record. Spain had its warmest August on record, Finland its joint warmest and Switzerland second warmest.
It was only last year when global average temperatures reached a record high. Throughout the world, we have seen heatwaves and extreme weather having impacts.
