What 2024 reveals about the climate vulnerability of Switzerland

2024 was the hottest year ever recorded. Europe and Switzerland are particularly affected by climate change, as revealed by a new climate report of the world Meteorological Organization.

Bruno Knellwolf / Ch Media

The violent bad weather that struck Valais this Thursday recall, like an echo, those of last summer: May and June were cold and rainy, the levels of the lakes and exceptionally high rivers, with muds, landslides, dead and wounded in many regions of Switzerland.

And the situation was not better elsewhere: Western Europe has experienced one of the most rainy years since 1950. This is revealed by the new report “European State of the Climate 2024”, published by the European Service Copernicus on Climate Change and the World Meteorological Organization (OMM).

Out of 106 pages, the report aligns not very pleasing facts. The year 2024 was the warmest ever recorded worldwide, after a year 2023 already exceptionally hot. Almost half of the continent has experienced annual temperature records. And, since the start of the surveys, the last ten years have been the hottest ever measured.

Annual anomalies of the air temperature on the surface (° C) on European land for the period 1950-2024, compared to the average of the 1991-2020 reference period.Image: copernicus

This heat is also felt in terms of sea temperatures, which have reached a record level above the oceans, outside the poles. The Mediterranean sea temperature was 1.2 degree higher than average, recording the highest temperature since the surveys start.

> Left: daily sea surface temperatures (° C) for the entire Mediterranean Sea in 2023 (orange) and 2024 (red), and previous years since 1982 (gray).
> Right: daily anomalies of sea surface temperature (° C) on August 13, 2024, the highest TSM day in the Mediterranean basin, compared to the average of the 1991-2020 reference period.Image: copernicus

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In Switzerland, in the heart of Europe, we live in a hot area. Since the 1980s, our continent heats up twice as fast as the world average, making it the region knowing the quickest warming on earth.

Air temperature anomalies on the surface in 2024, compared to the average of the reference period 1991-2020.Image: copernicus

Dead and injured in many floods

This is accompanied by more frequent extreme events. Heat waves have become more common and more intense, and southern Europe experienced generalized droughts in 2024. While the region was extremely dry, western Europe, including Switzerland, was struck by torrential rains. The floods that have resulted have been the most serious since 2013.

Almost a third of the European river network has exceeded the flood threshold. It is estimated that 413,000 people were affected in Europe, and at least 335 have lost their lives. In Switzerland, deaths and disappearances took place in June in the Mesolcina valley, while significant destruction was reported that month in Ticino and Valais, as well as in July in Brienz.

Global warming is also obvious when examining the number of days of frost. The proportion of land with less than three months of frost has never been so high. So, There has never been a year with so few cold days in Europe. This manifests itself particularly in the glaciers, which fell in all European regions.

The glaciers of Scandinavia and Spitzberg recorded the greatest loss of mass ever measured in 2024. In addition, the heat also struck many forests. In Portugal, about 1,100 square kilometers of forest burned in one week, about four times the area of ​​the canton of Geneva.

The report also presents positive aspects: in 2024, the share of electricity production from renewable energies in Europe reached a record level of 45%. Since 2019, almost twice as many EU countries have produced more electricity from renewable sources than fossil fuels. This also applies to Switzerland thanks to hydraulic energy.

Translated and adapted by Noëline Flippe