Europe is warming twice as fast as the global average, according to the latest annual report from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts’ (ECMWF) Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
The European State of the Climate (ESOTC) 2025 report outlines how rapid warming across the continent last year caused significant reduction of snow and ice cover, record heatwaves on land and at sea, drought, wildfires, and continuing biodiversity loss.
Anomalies and extremes in annual surface air temperature in 2025. The extreme categories (‘coolest’ and ‘warmest’) are based on rankings for 1979–2025. The other categories describe how the temperatures compare to their distribution during the 1991–2020 reference period. ‘Much cooler/warmer than average’ – cooler/warmer than 90% of temperatures; ‘cooler/warmer than average’ – than 66% of temperatures; ‘near average’ – within the middle 33%
The report brings together the work of national meteorological services, research and educational institutions and other scientific contributors to provide a comprehensive overview of key changes in climate indicators across Europe.
Among the editorial team working on behalf of the WMO on this year’s report was Principal Meteorological Officer and Head of TRANSLATE Project at Met Éireann, Dr Claire Scannell.
Dr Scannell worked on the section on ‘Climate policy and action: Biodiversity’, which outlined how climate change is a major cause of degradation in European biodiversity, and that, while policy and framework actions are delivering positive results, progress is slow.
“Climate Change and biodiversity are closely connected, and Europe’s changing climate is disrupting Europe’s natural terrestrial and marine environments,” Dr Scannell explains.
“This decline in biodiversity weakens nature’s ability to both regulate the climate and adapt to climate change creating a reenforcing cycle. Addressing the challenges of climate change and biodiversity decline in a coordinate way is essential and this is reflected within European policy and frameworks.”
Elsewhere, the report shows that at least 95% of Europe experienced above-average annual temperatures in 2025, with Ireland among that portion, having witnessed its second warmest year on record, with an average annual temperature almost 1°C above the long-term figure for 1991-2020.
Among the other key findings are that the annual sea surface temperature for the European region was the highest on record, extreme rainfall and flooding were less widespread than in recent years, while continent-wide river flows were below average for 11 months of the year.
For the full report, visit: European State of the Climate 2025 | Copernicus
Further questions on the ESOTC 2025 report or the Irish perspective on its findings can be directed to media@met.ie.