Europe experienced record heatwaves from the Mediterranean to the Arctic in 2025, alongside shrinking glaciers and declining snow cover, according to a press release issued on April 29, 2026 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The findings appear in the European State of the Climate (ESOTC) 2025 report, produced jointly with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which implements the Copernicus Climate Change Service. The report highlights the impacts of climate change on people and biodiversity across the fastest-warming continent. It draws on the work of around 100 scientific contributors. Dangerously high air temperatures, drought, heatwaves and record ocean temperatures affected regions from the Arctic to the Mediterranean.
The ESOTC 2025 report offers a comprehensive overview of key changes in climate indicators across Europe. It covers cold environments, marine ecosystems, rivers and lakes, and wildfire risk, among other areas. Europe, along with many other regions of the globe, is exposed to increasing impacts. These include record heatwaves on land and at sea, devastating wildfires, and continuing biodiversity loss. The consequences extend across societies and ecosystems throughout the continent.
At least 95% of Europe experienced above-average annual temperatures in 2025, according to the report. A record three-week heatwave affected sub-Arctic Fennoscandia, with temperatures near to and within the Arctic Circle exceeding 30°C. Glaciers in all European regions saw a net mass loss, with Iceland recording its second-largest glacier loss on record. Snow cover was 31% below average, while the Greenland Ice Sheet lost 139 gigatonnes (139 billion tonnes) of ice. The annual sea surface temperature for the European region was the highest on record, and 86% of the region experienced at least “strong” marine heatwaves.
Wildfires burned around 1,034,550 hectares, the largest area on record for the continent. River flows were below average for 11 months of the year across Europe, with 70% of rivers seeing below-average annual flows. Storms and flooding affected thousands of people across Europe, though extreme rainfall and flooding were less widespread than in recent years. Renewables supplied nearly half, or 46.4%, of Europe’s electricity in 2025. Solar power reached a new contribution record of 12.5%.
The report stresses that biodiversity is vital for a sustainable future, but climate change is a major cause of its degradation. Climate change and biodiversity are strongly connected within European policy and frameworks. The ESOTC 2025 findings underscore the scale of transformation unfolding across Europe’s climate system. The report consolidates evidence across land, ocean, ice, freshwater and energy indicators for the fastest-warming continent.
