Warmest November in Europe's far west

Temperature records have become a habit for Europe. Portugal experienced its "warmest" November ever recorded, with an average temperature of 15.14 degrees Celsius, the national meteorological institute (IMPA) announced. The month "was the warmest recorded" since IPMA began collecting data in 1931, a spokesman for the Portuguese institute told AFP. The temperature exceeded the average for this month from the period 1981-2010 by "2.69 degrees", added IMPA, which is due to publish its November bulletin, with all the complete data, in the coming days.

In Spain, the national meteorological agency AEMET also announced that it had recorded its "warmest" November, with an average temperature of 12.4 degrees Celsius, equivalent to 0.5 degrees Celsius higher than the previous record, which dates back to 1983. Like neighboring Spain, Portugal experienced in 2023 the second warmest year recorded in this country since 1931, with an average temperature of 16.5 degrees Celsius, slightly below the 16.6 degrees Celsius recorded the previous year. Aggravated by climate change, forest fires have destroyed almost 140,000 hectares of vegetation in Portugal this year, the worst toll since 2017, when the scorched area exceeded 530,000 hectares. The year 2023 was the warmest on record for the planet, flirting with the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold set by the Paris Agreement for the first time throughout the year, the Copernicus astronomical observatory announced in its latest annual report, published in January. With an average temperature of 14.98 degrees Celsius, last year was 1.48 degrees Celsius warmer than the climate of the pre-industrial era (1850-1900). The new record exceeds by a wide margin (0.17 degrees Celsius) the previous, quite recent, one from 2016.