European State of the Climate 2023 by Copernicus - ECMWF

The European State of the Climate (ESOTC) 2023 is a web-based report aimed at policy makers and non-specialist audiences interested in the climate conditions of the past year and longer-term climate change. The 2023 edition, published in April last year, is the seventh released by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) - a service implemented by ECMWF on behalf of the European Commission - and the first jointly released with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

ESOTC 2023 provides a detailed analysis of climate conditions, key events and their impact in Europe, exploring variations in key climate variables from across the Earth system.

The report consists of several thematic sections that can be explored online, each providing key messages and a broader discussion around a given topic.

Data visualisation underpins the whole report: a bespoke cover art, infographics, responsive interactive charts, a key event map, an executive summary, GIFs and a story map including quizzes and animations have all been designed and developed to communicate key scientific findings in the most accessible and compelling way.

Previous editions of the report used satellite imagery for their cover. Last year, a bespoke cover art was designed to reinforce the importance of data visualisation across the whole report, as well as the specific focus on Europe.

Since the 1980s, Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average, becoming the fastest-warming continent on Earth. The cover art aims to reiterate this strong message by depicting flowers with petals in shades of red and blue corresponding to real temperature anomalies in Europe since the 1980s. The last red petal, representing 2023 data, symbolically flows away towards an unknown future. The flower design concept has also been leveraged in the design of the executive static summary of the report.

All graphics and maps shown have been created following uniform style guidelines compiled and agreed at the very beginning of the editing process. This is to ensure the report has a uniform and unique visual identity, despite the high number of contributors and the variety of tools used (including Python, R, QGIS, Adobe Illustrator, Flourish, Datawrapper).

Interactive charts were used in last year's edition for the first time since the report was initially published in 2017. They offer users extra layers of information, while allowing them to navigate the content at their own pace. They are also fully responsive to guarantee an optimised navigation on different devices.

Another addition to ESOTC 2023 is an interactive fully responsive key events map, gathering many extreme events which occurred all along the year. The map can be explored and searched by type of event or time period. It can also be viewed as a timeline - which is set to be the default view on mobile to improve navigation.

ESOTC 2023 is based on more than 40 datasets, provided and processed by over 80 scientists from the Copernicus Services and a large number of collaborating organisations around Europe and the globe. All the data presented throughout the report are open and free to download directly from the page with a simple click.