NOSHigh water in Hattem
NOS News•today, 09:59•Changed today, 10:47
There are still a few days left until 2023, but it is already certain that it will be a year full of meteorological and climate records. And they are cause for concern: Never before had so much rain fallen in one year, at least since measurements began in 1906. It was also the warmest year measured so far in the Netherlands. This is evident from the annual KNMI weather overview.
Globally, 2023 will also become the hottest year in living memory and record values for sea water temperature and sea level rise could be recorded.
Rain Rain rain
The incessant rain of recent times, but also an extremely wet start to the year and flooded March and April have led to a record rainfall more than a quarter above average. Nationwide, around 1,060 millimeters have fallen this year, the average being 795 millimetres.
Not the whole country suffered equally: in the south-west the climate was much drier than, for example, in North Holland or the Veluwe. The greatest amount of precipitation occurred at the Deelen weather station on the Veluwe, where 1,265 millimeters of rain fell, 400 mm more than normal.
Climate change plays a role, but it doesn’t explain everything. “In a warmer world there is more evaporation and therefore more precipitation,” says climatologist Peter Siegmund from the KNMI. But he emphasizes that even in the future a year with more than 1000 millimeters of rain will remain an exception.
“We will have a wetter autumn and winter due to climate change, and this is true in all scenarios, even if we stop emitting greenhouse gases now. But this year’s amount of rain will remain extreme,” says Siegmund.
Data for the Netherlands:
Mild winter, sunny summer
2023 was also one of the hottest years on record, with an average temperature of 11.8 degrees Celsius. This is not due to a series of outliers. There were no heat waves or more than average tropical days. It’s been warmer across the board. We have had, and have had earlier this year, a very mild winter.
New Year’s Eve was warmer than ever at 16.9 degrees. There were exceptionally few really cold days; the record cold remained at minus 10.1 degrees on December 1 in Leeuwarden. We will have such mild winters more and more often in the future, says Siegmund.
The summer was unprecedentedly sunny. On average across the country the sun shone 1910 hours, normally almost 140 hours less. These extra hours are mainly due to June, the warmest and sunniest month since measurements began.
In the first three weeks it hardly rained. For a while there was a lot of talk about the drought, but by the end of September – due to the numerous rains – those worries were already far away.
The sunniest place in our country: the coast of Zealand. In Vlissingen the sun shone for 2064 hours. Deelen has less sun, but also more rain.
This year’s weather in the Netherlands in photos:
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ANP
March – Traffic interruption on the N281 in Limburg due to snowfall
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Annette van Citters via eyewitness NOS
June – Shelter from heavy rain in Den Bosch
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Pieter Perquin
July – Storm damage in Haarlem due to Storm Poly
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ANP
September – Crowds in Scheveningen on a hot September day
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ProRail
November – Damage to the Limburg runway due to storm Ciarán
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ANP
December – High water on the Rhine at Tolkamer due to heavy rain in Germany
Assault Poly on Ciarán
One of the most notable extreme weather events was Storm Poly on July 5 this year. With wind gusts of 140 kilometers per hour, it was one of the strongest summer storms in the last fifty years. The KNMI issued the code red, the only time this year. A 51-year-old woman was killed by a falling tree and, according to insurers, damages could amount to up to 100 million euros. Storm Ciarán swept through the Netherlands in early November. Code orange was then in force in much of the country.
It is not always possible to immediately answer the question of whether global warming plays a role in extreme weather, especially storms and droughts. In the case of thunderstorms, for example, it depends on the location and the season. According to the KNMI there is no link between summer storm Poly – and other summer storms in the Netherlands – and climate change. The trend would even be that there will be fewer storms in summer. The situation is different in other parts of the world, where storms and hurricanes can increase, especially in intensity.
Meanwhile in the rest of the world…
It was also a year full of extremes around the world. There have been record temperatures and weeks of widespread heatwaves across the world. Sea temperatures have shocked climate scientists, worrying reports of no sea ice in Antarctica and sea levels rising faster than expected.
Earlier this month, the World Meteorological Organization WMO announced that another global heat record will be broken in 2023, with temperatures well above the previous record in 2016.
Global warming is now 1.4 degrees compared to the pre-industrial era. Greenhouse gas emissions and resulting global warming will only make extremes more common, scientists have been warning for years.
2023-12-29 08:59:26
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