2022: record year for heat in France

2022 is a year characterized by temperatures above normal for the season throughout the year except for the months of January and April. The average annual temperature was 14.5°C compared to 14.07°C, the previous record in 2020.

In a few figures, France experienced a heat record in three waves over a period of 33 days during which temperatures were 2.3°C above normal. The summer of 1983 had obtained the previous record with 23 days. But in terms of heat waves, the summer of 2003 remains the first with temperatures 2.7°C above normal.

Autumn was very mild between September and October and as for New Year’s Eve, it was the warmest recorded since 1947. regularly over the long term due to global warming. Indeed, eight of the last ten warmest years have occurred after 2010.

Another consequence of global warming: drought, which occurs even in the middle of winter. France experienced a record rainfall deficit of 25% last year. Three-quarters of the country’s soils were affected in particular by “exceptional sunshine even in the North”.

In addition, the lack of rain combined with the drought have made the vegetation particularly flammable. As a result, it was a dark year for forest fires with more than 62,000 hectares devastated in 2022 against an average of 8,500 according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System.

A climatologist from Météo France says that without the greenhouse gases causing the rise of global warming, the heat waves during the year 2020 would certainly have been “less intense”.