Final point, 2022 closes, in Spain, as the warmest year since 1915 and exceeds the average temperature of 15ºC for the first time. A historical anomaly that is reflected worldwide as one of the hottest exercises. However, these irregularities have become more frequent lately than headlines such as “temperature record”, “the hottest summer in history” or “the driest autumn on record”.
Alerts that this year have been read in the reports of the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Climate Change (IPCC) after the sixth evaluation of the different working groups that make up this panel. “Urgent measures are required,” they warned in the first publication in February. After this report came another two but under the same premise: keep the planet’s average temperature at bay.
The 1.5ºC limit set by the Paris Agreement is getting closer and in some areas it has already been exceeded. “The average warming is 1.1ºC”, advanced in the IPCC text Jofre Carnicer, a member of the Department of Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Environmental Sciences at the University of Barcelona. “But it is that in the Mediterranean it has already risen 1.5ºC,” he added. “If we do not address mitigation measures we will reach limits that we will not be able to reverse.”
Warnings that came in the first months of the year just as the first effects of climate change left their stamp on the entire planet:
Heat wave in Antarctica
In mid-March, Antarctic thermometers shot up due to a tropical heat wave that caused several stations in Antarctica to measure temperatures 40ºC higher than usual, while in the Arctic, the thermal anomaly was 30ºC above average. half.
Temperatures that, especially in the Arctic, have been common in recent years, but not in Antarctica. An “atmospheric river”, as meteorologists called it, brought rain to parts of East Antarctica and raised the mercury to -12.2ºC, 40ºC above normal, at Concordia station. On the same day, temperatures reached 0ºC at the Vostok station, surpassing its all-time record in 65 years of measurements.
These waves not only left their mark on historical records, but also accelerated the melting of the polar surface.
This 2022, the Australian Office of Meteorology certified that, for the first time in history, a block of ice in East Antarctica separated from the continental block. With an extension of 1,200 square kilometers, ten times the city of Bilbao and Seville.
heat wave in india
43.7ºC, 43.8ºC and 44ºC. These are the records of extreme temperatures that India registered during the month of March, an escalation that reached 47ºC in the month of May. “This is a heat wave with temperatures above 47 degrees, especially in western India and eastern Pakistan. Nighttime temperatures have also been very high, exceeding 30 degrees in the same areas, “explains the spokesman for the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet), Rubén del Campo.
The average temperature of March and April in that area was the highest in 122 years, according to the India Meteorological Department, and left behind damages that affect about 1,000 million people due to impacts on human health or on crops and animals. domestic.
early wave
In 47 years there have only been three heat waves in a month of June and since this year there has been one more. “The heat wave registered in the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands between the 11th and 18th of the month is the earliest occurrence of the series, equaling records with the one that occurred on June 11, 1981,” said the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET). ). However, it was more intense and lasting.
This is the second longest-lasting heat wave that began in June since 1975, only surpassed by the one from June 27 to July 26, 2015. It was not an isolated case, but the global average temperature in June was 0.32ºC more higher than the 1991-2020 average, making it the third-warmest June on record.
In Spain, the records exceeded 2ºC on average to 21.8ºC, closing the month as the fourth warmest of the 21st century, behind the months of June 2017, 2003 and 2005.
Floods in Pakistan
More than 1,500 people dead and more than 33 million people affected due to more than 20 days of torrential rain in Pakistan. This is the humanitarian balance to which must be added houses destroyed, bridges flooded, schools flooded and crops destroyed.
In less than a month, Pakistan was submerged. “At least a third of the country is under water,” said the country’s climate change minister at the end of August. Despite the humanitarian assistance work, the UN estimates that the investment needed to cover the needs of this natural disaster exceeds 160 million euros, a figure that the Islamabad executive raises.
‘suffocating’ summer
The measurements of the community satellites have collected data since the 50s of the 20th century, although there are records from 1880 under other systems and the conclusion is forceful: “there is no similar record”. The average temperature in Europe was about 1.34 degrees Celsius above the average for the period between 1991 and 2020. “Europe has suffered the hottest summer since at least 1880,” Copernicus researchers certified in September .
However, this anomaly is no exception. The high temperatures in the European meteorological summers (June-August) have been a constant in recent years. You don’t have to look very far in the data to find the previous record: 2021. To the last summer we must add those of 2010 and 2018, the next hottest. Now, these data are surpassed by those of 2022 by exceeding them by about 0.4 degrees.
For their part, the Iberian Peninsula, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands have also suffered the hottest summer since there are records, in this case since 1961. The previous record dated from 2003 when the noted thermal anomaly was 1.8 C on average, now it has been 2.2ºC, that is to say 0.4ºC more.
On the peninsula, the average temperature has been 24.7ºC, which represents a difference of 2ºC compared to the reference period (1980-2010). “It has been the second warmest month of August since the beginning of the series in 1961, and therefore also in the 21st century, behind only August 2003,” highlights Aemet.
An unusual meteorological summer that left the first official heat wave on June 12, there began a counter that has stopped at 42 days. These are the days under heat waves “officially”.
big fires
Month after month, Spain has been chaining adverse climatic phenomena in an escalation of records that is difficult to overcome, which shows that the climate emergency appears to be a catastrophe, as evidenced by the almost 306,000 hectares of land burned this year by the fires, the worst in 15 years. A dramatic summer in the rest of the continent as well.
drought in europe
The summer of 2022 in the Old Continent is summed up in high temperatures, extreme heat waves and an absence of precipitation. The lack of rainfall in some parts of the Old Continent has left water reserves to a minimum. In south-east England, hydrological records have not recorded rain for 150 days, according to the UK Center for Ecology and Hydrology. “The late spring and early summer of 2022 have been characterized by abnormal anticyclonic conditions over most of western and central Europe,” the European Drought Observatory newsletter reported last summer.
Spain recorded an average of 8.6 mm of rainfall in July, according to the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET). France, 9.7 millimeters of rain; and UK 23.1mm. “The lowest figure for the month since 1935 and the seventh lowest July total on record,” according to the UK Met Office. “It is something exceptional,” warns Garrido. “Although, we are going to have to get used to the periodicity of these phenomena,” he adds.
The 2050 predictions of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are starting to come true almost three decades early. Scientific reports and research point to a gradual increase in temperatures and a decrease in rainfall.
With only an increase of 1.5 degrees in the planet’s temperature, extreme phenomena such as strong storms, severe heat waves, longer droughts or torrential rainfall will increase.
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