The summer of 2024 is the hottest on record in Greece, beating the previous heat record by one degree Celsius, the Greek Meteorological Observatory said on Friday.
June and July were the hottest months recorded since 1960, when measurements began, while August was the second hottest month after August 2021, it noted on its website meteo.gr.
The observatory said it had drawn these preliminary conclusions from data provided by the European climate observation programme Copernicus.
The Greek body noted that on average, summer temperatures in Greece had increased by 2.3 degrees Celsius between 1960 and 2024, after already pointing out in March that the winter of 2023 had been the mildest ever recorded in the country.
In addition to a prolonged drought, Greece has been hit again this summer by dozens of wildfires, including one that ravaged the suburbs of Athens in August, killing a woman trapped in a factory.
The Observatory’s president, Manolis Plionis, noted this week that the number of such fires in Greece this year – more than 4,000 since May, officials said – was higher than the average for the past 20 years.
Also on Friday, Copernicus announced that this year was likely the warmest ever recorded on Earth.
The data comes after a season of global heatwaves that scientists say have been intensified by human-induced climate change.
“Over the past three months, the planet has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day and the hottest northern summer on record,” Samantha Burgess, Copernicus’ deputy director, said in a report.
This series of records “increases the probability that 2024 will be the hottest year on record,” she added.
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