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year.png

Fig.1: Regionally differentiated trend of annual mean air temperature 1961-2021. Globally,
the temperature has risen by 1.04 degrees. In Central Europe by 2 degrees and more over
large areas. The dark red colouring of the Arctic region shows the extreme temperature
increase of clearly more than 4 degrees. Europe and Siberia are other focal points of
anthropogenic warming of the Earth's atmosphere. Source: NASA GISSTEMP.

year2.png

Fig.2: Monthly anomalies of precipitation totals in 2022 at the measuring point of the
Intercultural Garden Coswig (Hellmann rain gauge). Colours: brown (deficit) and dark green
(surplus). You can see the pronounced drought episode from March to July.

Autor: Wilfried Küchler

Year 2022 in review

With a mean air temperature of 11.0 °C at the DWD station Dresden-Klotzsche, the year
2022 was 2.1 degrees warmer than the annual mean of the reference period 1961 to 1990,
to which we adhere for the evaluation of the longer-term climate development. In the
ranking since 1961, the past year even reached 4th place after the warmest years recorded
so far, 2019, 2018 and 2020. Since 1961, we have recorded an increase in average annual
mean temperatures of 2.0 degrees Celsius, i.e. in these 62 years alone an increase twice as
large as the global air temperature (about 1 degree). Fig.1 shows the globally observed trend
in regional air temperature 1961-2021. The comparatively strong increase in Central Europe
cannot be overlooked.

In terms of sunshine, the year ended with a plus of +522 hours. In the ranking since 1961,
the past year also reached 4th place after the sunniest years recorded so far in 2018, 2011
and 2003. Since 1961, we have recorded a more than remarkable increase of 404 hours in
average sunshine duration.

In terms of precipitation, 7 months were clearly too dry in Coswig last year compared to the
long-term average and only four months were more or less too wet (Fig.2). With 469 mm,
only 79 % of the normal annual total was achieved. This corresponded to a minus of 123
mm. The extraordinary drought of the overall soil that has existed since 2018 thus remained
in our region or even intensified again. The partly catastrophic condition of our forests
exemplifies the serious negative consequences of the drought years 2018, 2019, 2020 and
2022.

Conclusion: The year 2022 was clearly too warm and too dry in the Coswig-Radebeul region
compared to the reference period 1961-1990, with far above-average sunshine duration.
The completely exceptional series of drought years continued in 2022. The causes of this
combination of weather and climate trends, which is very critical for our area, are probably
to be found above all in the change in the properties of the jet stream as a result of the far
above-average warming of the Arctic region.

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