Thirty-four point nine degrees Celsius in Frosta, Norway, a few dozen kilometers from the Arctic Circle. It is one of the data that best tells what happened to Europe in 2025, a year that will go down in climate history as one of the most anomalous ever recorded. This is certified by the European State of the Climate 2025 (ESOTC) report, published by the European Center for Medium-Term Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the result of the work of around one hundred scientists on forty-five datasets and as many variables. The document reiterates that Europe is warming at double the global average rate. No other continent accumulates heat so quickly.
Between 10 and 31 July, sub-Arctic Fennoscandia experienced the longest heat wave on record: twenty-one consecutive days with temperatures above 30°C within the Arctic Circle. This is a region that normally has a maximum of two days a year with “strong” heat stress and has accumulated up to twelve, almost double the previous record of 2018. Florian Pappenberger, director general of the ECMWF, is explicit: “In 2025, Norway, Sweden and Finland recorded the worst heat wave ever”.
The numbers of an anomalous year
Nearly the entire continent — 95% of the surface — has experienced above-average annual temperatures. The five hottest years in European history all occurred after 2019. July also brought the second most intense heat wave ever recorded in Europe, lasting twenty-five days and affecting a huge portion of the continent. Southern Spain has accumulated up to fifty days more than average with temperatures felt above 32°C.
With heat and drought, come fires. In 2025 the burned area reached approximately 1,034,552 hectares: the highest value ever recorded, larger than the entire island of Cyprus. Fire emissions also reached an all-time high. Spain alone contributed about half of the total emissions; but Cyprus, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany also broke their respective national records.
Meanwhile, Europe’s average annual sea surface temperature has reached its highest value ever recorded – the fourth consecutive record-breaking year. 86% of the ocean region has experienced at least one “severe” marine heat wave; 36% reached “severe” or “extreme” levels, also a record percentage. The Mediterranean, for the third consecutive year, has seen every part of it hit by at least one episode of marine heat wave. The posidonia meadows, fundamental for the coastal ecosystem, pay the direct consequences.
The ice that doesn’t return
European glaciers have lost mass in all regions. Iceland recorded its second biggest loss since 1976: only the year of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010 had it fared worse. Greenland lost 139 gigatons of ice, about one and a half times the total volume of all the glaciers in the European Alps — raising sea levels alone by 0.4 mm in a year. For every centimeter of rise, six million more people are exposed to the risk of coastal flooding. Europe’s snow cover in March was 31% lower than average: an area equivalent to France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria combined was snow-free.
Drought, renewables and biodiversity
70% of European rivers recorded lower than average flows. In May, 53% of the continent was in drought. The only news that goes against the trend: renewable energies covered 46.4% of European electricity in 2025, with solar at a record 12.5%. The energy transition is accelerating, but not yet enough.
The report dedicates a chapter to the now structural link between the climate crisis and the loss of biodiversity. Droughts, fires and marine heat waves alter seasonal rhythms, displace species and destroy habitats. As Samantha Burgess, strategic climate manager at ECMWF, reminds us: “Climate change is not a future threat, it is our current reality.” The data for 2025 tells us this again, for the umpteenth time.
