Climate impacts in Europe

Climate impacts in Europe

The extent to which the climate will change depends on the development of society and the economy in coming years. These changes are captured in different climate and socio-economic scenarios. Socio-economic scenarios provide plausible descriptions of possible future states of the world, based on the choices that society makes. Global climate models provide projections of future climate change at the global scale and use greenhouse gas emissions scenarios associated with these various socio-economic scenarios. These projections can be used to calculate more detailed climate projections for Europe and countries.

The 2024 European Climate Risk Assessment provides a comprehensive assessment of the major climate risks Europe is facing today and in the future. It identifies 36 major climate risks that threaten our energy and food security, ecosystems, infrastructure, water resources, financial systems, and people’s health, also considering the risk for the agriculture sector.

In order to derive climate impacts and climate risk maps, data on climate observation and climate change scenarios are provided through e.g. the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). The Climate Data Store (CDS) is designed to enable users to tailor services to more specific public or commercial needs. The European Climate Data Explorer is a graphical user interface that provides interactive access to many climate indices from the Climate Data Store of the C3S. Furthermore, C3S offers annual climate reports, climate bulletins as well as pilot studies on climate impact assessment for selected sectors through its Sectoral Information System (SIS).

Different maps present how Europe might be affected by climate risks such as heatwaves, floods, drought, forest fires and sea-level rise during this century. These maps are based on different socio-economic scenarios and different climate models (e.g. Maps of Climate change impacts in Europe). Adaptation activities cannot and do not replace climate change mitigation efforts, but for a sustainable development of our society, both climate change mitigation and adaptation activities are necessary.