(Bloomberg) -- The last three months shattered winter heat records with temperatures almost 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the next warmest wintertime just four years ago.
Average temperatures between December and February were 3.4 degrees Celsius warmer than average, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
“This was a truly extreme event in its own right,” Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus, said in a statement on Thursday. “It is likely that these sorts of events have been made more extreme by the global warming trend.”
Last year was the second-hottest on record and temperatures in 2020 are likely to rise above the historical average, even without the presence of a warming El Niño event, according to the World Meteorological Organization. The warmest year ever was 2016, when a combination of a strong El Niño and human-induced global warming boosted temperatures.
Europe has been particularly affected by mild temperatures this winter. January was the hottest on record in the continent, with some areas from Norway to Russia more than 6 degrees above the 1981-2010 January average. Temperatures in February were 3.9 degrees Celsius warmer than the average February between 1981 and 2010.
The unusually hot winter has resulted in weaker demand for energy and as a result prices for natural gas, coal and power have plummeted. Gas prices across the Atlantic are approaching their lowest level in more than two decades as a glut for the fuel builds, and demand growth is under threat from a slowing global economy and the coronavirus outbreak.
“Seeing such a warm winter is disconcerting, but does not represent a climate trend as such,” Buontempo said. “Seasonal temperatures, especially outside the tropics vary significantly from year to year.”
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