It makes less and less sense to view climate change only as something that will happen to future generations. The crisis caused by human use of fossil fuels is here and its effects are becoming increasingly clear. The climate emergency has once again left a trail of tragedy, death and ash across the Northern Hemisphere this summer with the extreme heatwaves and gigantic fires that have ravaged Canada, Greece, Hawaii and Tenerife. And no, it’s not the usual heat. Data managed by the main international agencies that monitor climate and meteorological events show this, suggesting the world’s hottest documented summer to date.
According to monthly reports from the European Union’s Copernicus climate change service, this June and July were the warmest June and July recorded across the planet since direct measurements began in 1850. Since the official Copernicus report won’t be released next week, the data also suggests that the exact same thing happened in August. Therefore, this was the hottest summer on the planet in at least 174 years.
“Although the data is still very preliminary, it is likely that this month will also be the hottest August in our global temperature records,” Zachary M. Labe, a researcher at Princeton University and NOAA, told EL PAÍS earlier this week. (the English acronym for “National Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration”). Global temperatures were the same on all but two days in August – the 13th and 14th, according to measurements from Climate Reanalyzer, a visualization tool developed by a team at the University of Maine based on NOAA measurements. The highest daily maximum values recorded so far for the same month. The data collected by Copernicus suggests this, emphasize sources from this organization.
Additionally, July 6 was the hottest day on record, with an average surface air temperature of 17.08 degrees Celsius. To find the previous record of 16.8 degrees, you only have to go back to 2016. This latest data should not be lost sight of: the hottest summers of the last 174 years are concentrated in the last decade, another example of the warming process that the planet is undergoing due to greenhouse gases and that is increasing. July overall was also the hottest month ever documented.
While it is summer in the northern hemisphere, it is winter in the southern hemisphere, and yet the highest global temperatures are always reached in northern summer. This is because there is more land in the Northern Hemisphere than in the South and the air over the continental surface warms more than over the ocean.
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But to understand the process that leads to all these records in 2023, two main factors must be taken into account, Labe emphasizes. On the one hand, El Niño, a pattern of climate variability associated with warmer temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, ultimately affecting the entire planet. Until this summer, the climate was under the influence of La Niña, the opposite phenomenon, but in June the conditions for the formation of El Niño began to form. This climate pattern is cyclical, so we need to consider another cause that is already structural: “long-term warming caused by human-caused climate change,” Labe adds. “In other words: temperatures are already rising due to climate change, and El Niño is temporarily causing these temperatures to rise even further,” summarizes the scientist.
“Climate change is here. It is frightening. And that is just the beginning. “The era of global warming is over, now is the time for the era of global cooking,” warned António Guterres, UN Secretary-General, in late July. “Due to the exceptionally warm conditions in the North Atlantic, we have broken new ground,” Copernicus also noted in July, referring to another record-breaking event this summer: the warming of Atlantic waters.
Spain: More than half of August in a heat wave
Climate change manifests itself in an average increase in temperatures, but also in an intensification of local extreme phenomena, such as heat waves, which are becoming more and more numerous. A good example is Spain. Preliminary data from Aemet (state weather agency) suggests that the peninsula and the Balearic Islands have experienced four “confirmed” heat waves this meteorological summer (June, July and August). “It is being examined whether a possible fifth meets the requirements,” explain sources from the Ministry for Ecological Transition.
In total, the four confirmed waves add up to 24 days (the fifth one under investigation would add three more days to that number if confirmed). The worst was the last: it lasted nine days and affected 32 provinces. In addition, 56% of days in August were affected by heatwaves. In the Canary Islands, summer ends with two waves lasting a total of 10 days.
A heat wave is an episode of unusually high temperatures lasting several days and affecting a significant portion of a geographic area, such as a country. However, there are no concrete, precise and uniform criteria worldwide. Aemet considers a heat wave to be present when an episode occurs on at least three consecutive days in which at least 10% of the stations used as reference stations record daily maximum temperatures above the average for the months of July and August. the period between 1971 and 2000. Since 1975, Aemet has recorded more than 70 events of this type in mainland Spain.
This summer is the fourth in the series to have the most reported days with a heat wave. When the data is re-analyzed, further evidence of the current global warming process is emerging: the summers with the most days of heat waves are once again concentrated in this decade. In 2022, the record was set at 41 days. This is followed by 2015 with 29, 2017 with 25 and this 2023 with 24.
“This is a trend, this summer confirms what organizations like the World Meteorological Organization or Aemet tell us,” says Teresa Ribera, third vice president and acting minister for the ecological transition. “But this summer, for the first time, we delved deeply into debates about how cities should adapt or the impact of climate change on sectors such as tourism,” adds Ribera. “Climate change will impact all areas of the economy,” he warns.
“The heat is no longer what it once was,” emphasizes environmental researcher and popularizer Andreu Escrivá. The expert insists that it is a mistake to see climate change as something that will only affect future generations: “At the beginning of the 2000s, when I was studying environmental science, it was already said that climate change was something that will have an impact on future generations. And we continue to talk about the same thing, about our children. But the future generations from 30 years ago are already us.” “Climate change is having a greater impact on older people.” [por ejemplo con la mortalidad asociada a las olas de calor] and I worry more about my parents and my friends’ parents than about my friends’ children,” adds Escrivá, who also warns that this does not mean that the future will be worse.
A man looks out from a balcony in the El Raval district of Barcelona on a hot August night. Gianluca Battista
How dire that future will be in the coming decades – that is, how far warming can go – is still in humanity’s hands, although an urgent change of direction is needed to keep the planet within safe limits. and drastic, as the last major scientific report from the IPCC, the United Nations-affiliated body of international experts, made clear. “We have long known that burning fossil fuels leads to a higher likelihood of dangerous heat waves, and now we are witnessing the reality of these predictions.” Without reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we can only expect these heat waves to continue to worsen over the next decade or longer make it worse,” emphasizes Labe.
Warming not only affects temperatures, but also the water available. Although it is not entirely clear what impact the climate crisis could have on precipitation, experts point to an impact on the so-called agricultural drought and hydrological drought, i.e. on soil moisture and available reserves. This is because higher temperatures mean greater evaporation, which in turn reduces reserves and increases the thermal load on vegetation.
The IPCC report also noted that an increase in “hydrological and agricultural droughts” has already been observed in the Mediterranean region. Additionally, drought and fires have been predicted to increase if global warming reaches two degrees (already at 1.2) compared to pre-industrial levels. In addition, the IPCC warned that “in southern Europe, more than a third of the population will be affected by water shortages if the temperature reaches two degrees.”
This week, the country’s backwater reserves stood at 37.6%, more than 15 points below the last decade’s average for the same week of the year, which is 52.9%. The main problem is the rainfall deficit, which has affected a large part of the country for more than a year and is pushing some basins to their limits, leading to cuts in irrigation and affecting the prices of some products such as olive oil. , which is shot.
The most complicated situation remains in the Guadalquivir reserves, whose capacity is at 19.5%. Something similar happens in the Guadiana basin (24.6%), in the inland basins of Catalonia (24.1%) and, to a lesser extent, in the Ebro (37.6%).
The Ministry for Ecological Transition produces a monthly drought situation report. The latest report on July 31 shows that 38.4% of the national territory is on alert or in emergency due to temporary water shortages. This indicator takes into account multiple measurements (e.g. storage volumes in reservoirs and river flows) and is used to identify potential supply issues, such as: B. Restrictions on irrigation and supply to the population. There are four scenarios: normal, pre-alarm, alarm and emergency. At the beginning of August, 10.2% of the national territory was in an emergency situation and 28.2% was on alert.
The situation is slightly better than at the beginning of the summer, thanks to “the rainfall in May and the more isolated rainfall in June,” which “made it possible to significantly improve the situation in the southeast of the peninsula,” according to the ministerial report. However, in most cases, a truly rainy autumn is needed to reverse this drought, which is also exacerbated by global warming that is already affecting the entire planet. “Climate change is happening here and now,” emphasizes Escrivá. “The world my parents grew up in no longer exists,” he concludes.
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