2019 was the warmest year in Lithuania since records began, meteorologists announced on Thursday, attributing it to global climate change.
Based on figures from the Lithuanian Hydrometeorological Service, the average annual temperature stood at 8.8 degrees centigrade last year and was 1.9 degrees above the 1981-2010 average.
“The change is huge. We have a very big difference from usual conditions and from previous records,” Donatas Valiukas of the Hydrometeorological Service, told BNS on Thursday.
2019 exceeded the previous record temeprature in 2015 by 0.5 degrees. The five warmest years on record in Lithuania occurred over the last decades, from 2008 to 2019.
“Global climate change is the only reason. Such a tendency is reflected by the records of many years,” Valiukas said.
Globally, 2019 was the warmest year over the whole period of two and a half centuries (1778-2019) of weather observation.
Climate change in Lithuania manifests itself through more frequent and intense heatwaves as well as a changing nature of precipitation, with periods of heavy rain alternating with dry periods, and squalls also happen more frequently.
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Reported by: LRT English Newsletter - Photo Credit: J. Stacevičius/LRT
