2015 - warm, dry but stormy year
2015
An overview of some of the more significant weather events of 2015, using satellite data, including data from Meteosat and Metop.
06 December 2022
31 December 2015
By Jochen Kerkmann and Sancha Lancaster (EUMETSAT)
2015 was the 39th consecutive year of above average global temperatures and the warmest on record. Combined land and ocean temperatures in 2015 averaged 0.90°C above the long-term mean (Credit: National Centers for Environmental Information (NEIC)).
Warm and dry conditions
In Europe the above average temperatures turned into recurring heatwaves which caused droughts in central and eastern parts in summer 2015.
The cumulative effect of persistent heatwaves, with long episodes without rain, caused serious problems for people, agriculture, and industry.
Comparing the 10 days aggregation of the NDVI (Normalised Difference Vegetation Index) product for 31 August 2014 and 31 August 2015 (Figure 1), a huge difference in vegetation cover could be seen for most of Europe. This product estimates the land surface characteristics derived from satellite data. It uses reflectances from the SEVIRI Level 1.5 image data for the VIS0.6µm and the VIS0.8µm channels.
In Figure 1, below, the blue areas have dense and healthy vegetation cover, while red means no vegetation or very dry vegetation.
Comparison of 2014 and 2015
Figure 1: Comparison of NDVI (Normalised Difference Vegetation Index) product for 31 August 2014 and 31 August 2015. Credit: NASA.
Image comparison
Figure 3: Comparison of Meteosat-10 Natural Colour RGB with and without streamlines.
2014/2015 comparison
Figure 4: Comparison of Meteosat-10 images illustrating the lack of snow pack on the Alps in 2015.
Image comparison
Figure 7: Comparison of Metop-A infrared and microwave images.
