On Friday, Austria, France, Germany, Poland and Switzerland announced the hottest September on record, which is expected to be the warmest September in human history due to accelerating climate change. Europe’s unusually hot weather comes after the EU’s climate watchdog said earlier this month that global Northern Hemisphere summer temperatures were the hottest on record.

French weather agency Meteo-France said the country’s average September temperature will be around 21.5 degrees Celsius (70.7 Fahrenheit), 3.5 to 3.6 degrees above the 1991-2020 reference period.

Average temperatures in France have been consistently above monthly norms for almost two years.

In neighboring Germany, weather service DWD said this month was the warmest September since national records began, nearly 4 degrees warmer than the 1961-1990 baseline. The Polish Meteorological Institute said the temperature in September was 3.6°C above average, making it the warmest month since records began more than 100 years ago.

National meteorological authorities in the Alpine countries Austria and Switzerland also recorded their highest average temperatures for a single day in September after a study showed Swiss glaciers lost 10 percent of their volume in two years due to overheating. The national meteorological institutes of Spain and Portugal have warned that abnormally high temperatures are expected this weekend, with the mercury expected to reach 35 degrees Celsius in parts of southern Spain on Friday.

Records broken “systematically”

Scientists say human-caused climate change is causing global temperatures to rise, with the world warming by about 1.2°C above pre-industrial levels. Earlier this month, the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service told AFP that 2023 was likely to be the hottest year on record.

Warmer temperatures are on the horizon as the El Niño weather phenomenon that warms the waters of the South Pacific and beyond has just begun. The disruption of the planet’s climate systems is making extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts, wildfires and storms more frequent and intense, causing greater loss of life and property.

World leaders will gather in Dubai on November 30 for crucial UN talks aimed at reducing the worst effects of climate change, including limiting warming to 1.5°C, the target of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Discussions will focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, including phasing out the consumption of polluting gas, oil and coal, climate finance and increasing the potential for renewable energy.

“Until we reach carbon neutrality, heat records will be systematically broken week after week, month after month, year after year,” François Jemin, lead author of the UN climate report, told AFP this week.