Theoretical Background - Response of Flood Events to Land Use and Climate Change - page 25

Fig. 2.4 European annual average temperature deviations, 1850-2009, relative to the 1850-1899
average (in o C). The lines refer to 10 year moving average, the bars to the annual ''land only''
European average; (Source EEA's 'global and European temperature' core set indicator, based on
gridded data from CRUT)
which are in the source in relation to the base period between 1961 and 1990. To
better monitor the EU objective not to exceed 2 C above pre-industrial values, the
annual deviations shown in the chart have been adjusted to be relative to the period
between 1850 and 1899. Over Europe, average annual temperatures during the real
pre-industrial period (1750-1799) were very similar to those during 1850-1899.
Figure 2.5 shows the 10 year moving average of the annual, winter (December,
January and February) and summer (June, July and August) mean temperature
deviations in Europe 1860-2009. It seems that since 1990, the annual, summer and
winter variables trend in temperature over Europe was increasing. Observed
temperature change over Europe 1976-2006 is shown in Fig. 2.6 .
In all figures, the increasing trend in temperature over Europe is obviously
clear. The increases for winter in northern Europe and in summer for southern
Europe were higher.
The IPCC report also mentioned that Europe's climate was already being
affected by warming in several ways; for example, the snow cover has decreased
by 1.3 % per decade in the last 40 years.
According to IPCC [ 75 ], WMO [ 22 ] and McCarthy et al. [ 76 ] the strongest
potential impact of climate change on human settlements is believed to be flooding
[ 75 , 22 ], McCarthy et al. [ 76 ]. Climatic parameters are one of the most important