Par Maxime Ponsot Published on Apr. 1525 at 8:54 am
An unleashed Danube that ravages everything in its path, hundreds of deaths in Valence carried away by torrents of water and sludge … In 2024, Europe experienced record heat but also its worst floods for more than a decade, showing the extreme double face of climate change.
Neara third of the European river network has been flooded Last year, which was one of the most rainy years on the continent since 1950, indicates, in a report published this Tuesday, April 15, 2025, the European Observatory Copernicus in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization (OMM).
About 413,000 people affected
It is “the most extensive floods” that Europe has known “since 2013”, underlined during a Samantha Burgess press point in the European Center for Middle Term Météorological Forecast (ECMWF), which provides Copernicus’s climatological service.
And the figures are impactful. These floods affected around 413,000 people, costing life to, at least 335 of themwith an estimated cost Damage of around 18 billion euros.
These disasters occurred during the hottest year in the world and illustrate the fact that a warmer planet, absorbing more water in the atmosphere, allows more violent precipitation and floods, a threat that weighs particularly on Europe.
In September, the Boris storm dropped up to three months of rain in just five days, causing immense floods and major damage in eight countries in central and eastern Europe.
A month later, powerful storms, fed by the hot and humid air of the Mediterranean, poured torrential rains on Spain, causing floods that devastated the eastern province of Valencia, killing 232 people.
Europe will be one of the most risky regions for floods
At the beginning of 2024, each month was the scene of a major flood on the continent, recalls the report: January in the United Kingdom, February in the north of Spain, March and May in the north of France, June in Germany and Switzerland.
And the flow of rivers was particularly high, some like the Thames in the United Kingdom or the Loire in France recording their highest level for 33 years in spring and autumn.
In question: particularly intense precipitation on the western part of Europe, while conversely, the oriental regions were on average dry and warmer.
According to Samantha Burgess, this “striking contrast” is not directly linked to climate change, but rather to opposite pressure systems that influence cloud cover and moisture transport.
But the storms of 2024 were “probably more violent due to a warmer and more humid atmosphere,” she said. “With global warming, we are witnessing more and more extreme extreme events”.
This confirms the projections of IPCC climatic experts, according to which Europe will be one of the regions where the risk of flooding should increase the most due to the global warming.
Europe is the continent that heats up the most
Since the 1980s, Europe has heated twice as fast as the world average. It is the “continent that warms the most”, which has become one of the “hot spots” of climate change, underlines Florence Rabier, director of the ECMWF.
In 2024, the heat on the surface of the continent was never so high. This helped to increase the temperature of the bordering seas and oceans, which also reached records last year, and to melt European glaciers at an unprecedented rate.
“It is urgent to act, because the severity of the risk should reach critical or catastrophic levels by the middle or the end of this century,” said Andrew Ferrone, an EU scientific coordinator within the UN Climate, stressing that each tenth of degree avoided is important.
Only half of European cities have an adaptation plan
There are only half of European cities that have adaptation plans to meet extreme climate events, such as extreme floods and heat. “This represents an encouraging progress compared to the 26 % of 2018,” notes the report.
“But some southeast and southern Caucasus European countries are lagging behind. So we have to go faster, further and together, ”said Celeste Saulo, OMM secretary general.
(with AFP)
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