Extreme European temperatures likened to 'doping' in sport 

People skiing on a slope in Filzmoos south of Salzburg, Austria, on Thursday, January 5, illustrating sparse snowfall and unseasonably warm weather in much of Europe. Picture: AP Photo/Matthias Schrader

Record-breaking high temperatures across Europe in recent days have been boosted by greenhouse gases, akin to a sportsperson doping where natural ability is boosted artificially.

That is according to the secretary general of the World Meterological Organisation (WMO) as he attempted to explain how temperatures of more than 25C were seen in the Basque region on New Year's Day, nearly 19C in Poland's capital Warsaw, and more than 19C in the German city of Dresden on New Year's Eve.

Prof Petteri Taalas told the BBC that there is a natural variability component coupled with the effects of climate change at play.

"I have been using an analogy to sports. If you give a sportsman doping, they can perform at the higher intensity. We have been doping the atmosphere by injecting especially carbon dioxide...That is why we have started seeing more of these kind of extremes," he said.

Urgent need to cut emissions

The extreme weather patterns seen in Europe, the US, Pakistan, and the Horn of Africa will likely be seen until the 2060s, which shows the urgency in cutting emissions and lessening dependence in fossil fuels, he said.

In relation to the record-breaking European weather at the turn of the year, the WMO said that a high-pressure zone over the Mediterranean region and an Atlantic low-pressure system induced a strong south-west flux that brought warm air from north-western Africa to middle latitudes. 

The air was further warmed when passing the North Atlantic due to a higher-than-normal sea surface temperature. In the eastern North Atlantic, sea surface temperature was 1°C–2 °C higher than normal, near the coasts of Iberia even more, it added.

Hundreds of weather stations across Europe had their all-time highest daily temperature for the months of December or January, it said.

In November last year, the WMO's State of the Climate in Europe warned that the continent is warming faster than anywhere else on the planet, with glaciers in the Alps retreating at an alarming rate.