Sustainability
2022 was a normal 21st-century summer
Heat, drought, the danger of forest fires – the situation we experienced in 2022 will soon become the norm with climate change. The summer of 2022 will actually turn out to be one of the cooler ones in the 21st century if we don’t manage to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades. This is the opinion of climate researchers from the University of Bern.
The summer of 2022 was the third warmest in Switzerland since records started to be kept, after 2003 and 1947, with a pronounced drought especially until mid-August. In Central Switzerland, the summer had little rainfall, but didn’t actually make it into the list of the top 20 driest years on record. The loss of harvests was still considerable and the danger of forest fires immense. Furthermore, the summer of 2022 was also characterized by an exceptionally high and ongoing death rate. It is not yet clear what part the heat played in the many deaths.
The team of researchers working with climatologist Noemi Imfeld from the University of Bern analyzed the hot and dry summers 1947, 2003, 2018 and 2022 and detail causes and consequences for a wide public in the publication, in German, “Hot and dry summer in Switzerland”.