"Warming Arctic causes heat waves, floods in Europe"

The year of 2024 was the warmest on record in the 175 years of observations, according to the World Meteorological Organisation's (WMO) report released on Wednesday. 

“The human-caused increase in the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere is the largest driver of climate change,” the report says. 

While our planet has gone through periods of climate change millions of years ago, the warming we are now experiencing is different. 

The change now is much faster than natural climate change in the past," Philipp Assmy, a senior researcher at the Norwegian Polar Institute, told the Barents Observer. 

- "We know from the geological past that there have been events of rapid climate change on the planet. But what in the geological past means 'rapid' – are changes over thousands of years while now it is happening over decades", he added. 

The WMO report also highlights that global sea level rise in the last 10 years (2015-2024) has been more than double the rate of sea level rise in the first decade of the satellite record (1993-2002). 

Philipp Assmy's research focuses on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard - the fastest-warming place in the world. In June last year, Philipp and his team were surprised by record warmth during fieldwork on Svalbard allowing them to go outside in just a T-shirt. 

The heat causes the glaciers on Svalbard to melt and global sea levels to rise. 

"We are now talking about almost 5 mm per year of sea level rise," Philipp Assmy from the Norwegian Polar Institute told the Barents Observer. "That sounds very little. But it makes a big difference to millions of people living on the coast. With just a little bit of sea level rise, we have floods and storms that are much more severe. This is dangerous for human life and infrastructure”. 

The rapid warming of the Arctic is changing weather patterns around the globe. 

“Warming of the Arctic sets in motion processes outside the Arctic such as extreme heat waves and floods in Europe but also cold spells in North America.” Philipp Assmy pointed out.

The WMO report highlights that between 2014 and 2023, 48% of total emissions from human activities remained in the atmosphere driving the increase in atmospheric concentration. 

As the researchers point out, humans are still able to improve the situation. To reduce climate change people can try to consume less in their daily lives and, for example, choose to drive or fly less. Switching from burning fossil fuels to alternative green energy is also seen as a major factor in reducing the amount of man-made CO₂ in the atmosphere.