Growing Cities and Shrinking Forests Are Helping Heat Europe
Europe’s cities are warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, and a new study finds that the way Europeans have reshaped the land is a major reason why. Expanding built-up areas and the loss or alteration of vegetation are amplifying warming by up to 0.25 degrees Celsius per decade, on top of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases.
The research, published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, examined urban Europe’s surface-air temperature since 1850 using climate-model simulations and the HadCRUT5 observational dataset. It concludes that land-use change produces the strongest regional amplification of warming—about three times the global average—compared with an amplification of about two times for greenhouse-gas forcing.
More than greenhouse gases
Greenhouse gases remain the fundamental driver of global warming. But the study shows that what happens on the ground also matters: replacing forests, grasslands and other vegetated surfaces with roads, roofs, concrete and intensively managed farmland changes how sunlight is absorbed, how moisture evaporates and how air moves over the landscape.
Darker, harder urban surfaces absorb more solar energy and release it slowly as heat. Meanwhile, fewer plants mean less evaporative cooling—the process by which vegetation transfers water to the atmosphere and cools its surroundings. Together, these changes can turn cities and their surroundings into local heat traps.
The result is a “coupled atmospheric–surface response”: greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere, while altered land surfaces make parts of Europe especially efficient at converting that warming into higher local temperatures.
A continent heating fast
Europe is already the fastest-warming continent. Since the 1980s, it has warmed about twice as fast as the global average, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service and the World Meteorological Organization; European land temperatures over 2015–2025 were 2.20–2.29 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The new study finds that average surface-air temperature trends over Europe reach roughly 0.4–0.5 degrees Celsius per decade under anthropogenic and greenhouse-gas forcing, compared with about 0.2–0.3 degrees Celsius per decade globally. Land-use change can add as much as 0.25 degrees Celsius per decade, helping explain why urban Europe is heating so rapidly.
| Driver | Effect found in the study |
|---|---|
| Greenhouse gases | Amplify European warming at roughly twice the global rate. |
| Land-use change | Produces the strongest amplification, nearly three times the global rate. |
| Reduced aerosol cooling | Adds to the acceleration because cleaner air removes some particles that previously reflected sunlight. |
Why cities feel it most
The findings are especially consequential for Europe’s densely populated areas. The study projects that the amplified warming will persist through the century under moderate and high-emissions scenarios, particularly in urban regions.
That matters because heat is not evenly experienced. Asphalt, dark roofs and dense buildings store heat during the day and release it at night, making heatwaves more dangerous when overnight temperatures fail to fall. Reduced vegetation also limits shade and cooling, while changing wind patterns can reduce the ventilation that would otherwise disperse heat.
Earlier research has reached a similar conclusion: urban expansion in Europe can produce pronounced warming even where the pace of construction is relatively modest, because the loss of surrounding forest and wetter landscapes magnifies the local temperature contrast.
What can be done
The authors argue that cutting emissions alone will not fully solve Europe’s urban heat problem. They call for integrated strategies that combine emissions reductions with land management—protecting and restoring vegetation, designing cooler cities, and limiting development that replaces cooling natural surfaces with heat-retaining built surfaces.
For city planners, that could mean more tree canopy and parks, lighter-coloured roofs and pavements, permeable surfaces that retain moisture, and protection of forests and wetlands around expanding metropolitan areas. Such measures would not reverse global warming, but they could reduce the extra heat created when Europe paves over its own cooling systems.
The study’s message is stark: Europe’s climate future will be shaped not only by what enters the atmosphere, but also by what remains on the ground.