2020 climate status report confirms warming in "drastic ways"

According to the Climate status report the past climate year in Austria was “too humid”, “too warm” and “too stormy”. With a February that was 4,5 degrees Celsius too warm, winter 2019/2020 is the second warmest winter in the 253-year history of measurements.

In a broadcast by the Climate and Energy Fund it says: “The climate status report provides (...) not only information about the weather in 2020, but also provides also a comparison between the two now completely closed normal climate periods 1961 to 1990 and 1991 to 2020. It becomes very clear that the trend towards ever warmer temperatures in Austria began at the end of the 19th century. This trend intensified around 1980 and has continued unabated ever since. " Herbert Formayer, scientific director of the report, states: “But around 1990 the temperature level left the range known from measurements up to that point and the year 2020 drastically confirms it with a deviation of +2,0 ° C strong man-made warming trend. "

The strong increase in Heat stresswhich the report now also confirms. “The number of hot days with temperatures above 30 ° C in the state capitals has increased on average between six and 13 days and in some cases has tripled. Even tropical nights, i.e. nights in which the temperature does not drop below 20 ° C, now occur regularly in all state capitals. In the period 1961-1990, however, there was not a single such warm night in Klagenfurt and Innsbruck. "

The Climate Status Report 2020 was prepared on behalf of the Climate and Energy Fund and all nine federal states by the Climate Change Center Austria (CCCA) in cooperation with the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG) and the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU). The full report and a factsheet with detailed information on the climate year 2020 are available in Link below to download is available for storage, management and analysis.

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