Cities · Austria

Vienna in 2050: climate change in numbers

Vienna has warmed 2.1 °C, comparing the last ten years (2016–2025) with 1951–1980 — faster than the world as a whole (+1.1 °C). By 2050, its climate is projected to feel like Bucharest, Romania today.

2050 = 2040–2059 average, intermediate emissions (SSP2-4.5), median of CMIP6 climate models. “Today” = 1991–2020. Model range for average temperature: 11.4–12.8 °C.

1950 → 2025. Vienna's warming stripes: each stripe is one year's average temperature.

What Vienna's climate will feel like

Matching temperature, heat extremes, frost days and rainfall against the current climate of more than 1,000 large cities, Vienna's 2050 climate is closest to Bucharest, Romania — about 900 km away.

A year in Vienna, day by day

Each square is one day of the year; the coloured squares are the days that cross the threshold in an average year.

What changes by 2050

• The average temperature rises a further 1.4 °C compared with 1991–2020 (model range 0.9–2.3 °C).
• Days above 30 °C (86 °F) rise from about 15 a year (1991–2020) to about 29 by 2040–2059.
• Tropical nights — when it never cools below 20 °C — increase from about 3 to 14 a year, making heatwaves harder on health.
• Frost days fall from about 78 to 64 a year: shorter, milder winters.

Dangerous heat in Vienna

Days a year when the heat index — temperature and humidity combined — reaches 39 °C, the level the US National Weather Service calls Danger: 0 in 1995–2014, 0 by 2050 and 0 by 2090 under intermediate emissions, or 1 by 2090 if emissions keep rising. See where dangerous heat spreads worldwide.

Under high emissions

If emissions keep rising (SSP5-8.5), Vienna would average 12.7 °C by 2040–2059, with a hottest day around 39 °C and 39 days above 30 °C (86 °F) a year. By mid-century the scenarios are still close; the choices made now mostly decide what happens after 2050 — see the world in 2050.

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