2022 Data: Italy Experiences Hottest Year since 1800
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VIVA – According to data from the Institute for Atmospheric Science at Italy’s National Research Council (NRC), this year has been Italy's hottest since records began in 1800.
"There were record highs all along the way, starting in the spring, all throughout the summer, and now in the winter," said Bernardo Gozzini, director of the NRC's LaMMA meteorology consortium, as quoted from Xinhua.
The new record won't be official until the end of the year, but LaMMA officials said it is statistically impossible for average temperatures to fall below those of 2018, previously the hottest year on record in Italy.
LaMMA first began reporting in July that this year was on track to be the hottest on record. In October, it said that temperatures in northern and central Italy were 3.2 degrees Celsius higher than normal.
Meanwhile, the organization reported temperatures of 5 to 7 degrees Celsius higher than average in late December across most of southern and central Europe, including Italy.
Milan, Italia
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This year has been a difficult one in Italy, with a long summer drought reducing water levels by three-quarters in most of Italy's main rivers, and slashing agricultural production by a third. The scorching temperatures resulted in hundreds of deaths.
In July, a lack of rainfall combined with unseasonably high temperatures caused a glacier in northern Italy's Dolomites range to collapse.
According to the Italian Meteorological Society, or Nimbus, a warm front from North Africa has pushed December temperatures to unseasonable highs.
The Nimbus official, Daniele Cat Berro said that these high temperatures will persist at least until the end of the year in central and southern Italy. Globally, 2016 remains the hottest year, followed by 2020, 2019 and 2022.
