Offering a comprehensive overview of last year’s European climate, a focus on the Arctic and a summary of global conditions, the European State of the Climate 2020 is now available. To meet the targets set out in the Paris Agreement requires an array of measures to mitigate climate change. These must be based on consistent and reliable evidence, which is precisely what the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S*) presents in its annual flagship report.

The European State of the Climate 2020 confirms that for Europe, last year was the warmest on record, with autumn and winter also being warmer than any previous year that C3S has data for. Winter temperatures were particularly notable, at 3.4°C higher than the 1981–2010 average, 1.4°C higher than the second warmest winter on record. Temperatures over northern Siberia were also exceptional, reaching more than 6°C above average for the year as a whole; this was the largest annual temperature anomaly seen anywhere during 2020. Although many temperature records were broken, heatwaves were not as intense, widespread or long-lived as those of previous recent years. Globally, 2020 was one of the three warmest years on record...