In 2023, the heat killed 603 people in the Canary Islands, According to the Global Health Institute of Barcelona (ISGlobal). This data is superior to deaths due to pneumonia (596), endocrine diseases, such as diabetes (558 deaths), colon cancer (393) or pancreas (358).
Deaths due to high temperatures do not have to do directly with dehydration or heat blows. They are much more complex processes in which the continuous exposure to these embochorno conditions ends up aggravating diseases and worsening health. They can occur at both times of the day, but the nights are gaining prominence at a devilish pace, especially in the islands.
A study Recently published in the magazine Theorical and applied climatologyfrom the editorial Springer Naturehas analyzed the annual evolution of the hottest nights in the archipelago, those that exceed twenty degrees of minimum temperature (tropical), twenty -five (equatorial) and thirty (torridos), from the fifties so far.
The researchers gathered data from 53 weather stations and grouped the information of all according to the height in which they were: coasts (less than 250 meters high), Medianías (250-650 meters), High Mountain (650-1,000 meters) and peaks (more than 1,000 meters). Thus, they have been able to analyze not only the evolution of night heat in the autonomous community, but also the influence of altitude in this regard.
The publication results indicate that tropical nights have literally fired. The Coasts of the Canary Islands have gone from counting around eighty nights of this type seventy years ago to register more than 130 now. In the islands of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, which have their own category, the variation is similar: 46 tropical nights annually seven decades ago to more than ninety at the moment. In the rest of altitudinal groups the increases are even more intense.
No autonomy of Spain presents similar records. The same authors who made this publication, all of them researchers from the Chair of Reduction of Disaster Risk and Resilient Cities of the University of La Laguna (ULL), signed another a few months ago in which they detail that, on average, the archipelago reaches 92.2 tropical nights per year (analyzing the historical series from 1970 to 2023). The southeast of the Iberian Peninsula is in second place, with an average of 62.9. Then the Mediterranean (36) and the Peninsular Southwest (23,9) go.
The subtropical reality of the Canary Islands makes its base temperatures higher than in the rest of the country. And its location a few kilometers from the Sahara desert, “a focus of heat,” says Geograp worrying”.
Global warming is also behind. Since humans began to burn coal and oil and then emitted extraordinary amounts of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, capable of absorbing important radiation doses, minimum temperatures are increasing at high speed in The islands, especially in the peaks, where experts estimate an increase of 0.2 degrees per decade, more than double that seen on the coasts.
That acceleration continues up and does so at a higher rate than that of maximum temperatures. In the five years that go from 2019 to 2023, in fact, the thermal anomalies of the minimums in the high mountain and peaks of the Canary Islands have been up to ten degrees. Díaz explains that it is a global pattern and that it is due, among other things, that the maximums “are usually regulated by the ocean”, while for the minimum “that factor is lost” in high areas, where they are growing more.
The evidence of this is very evident. In the Roque de los Muchos (La Palma), more than 2,223 meters high, just four tropical nights were registered between 1950 and 1985. Due to the climatic crisis, only in 2023 eight were counted. For Díaz, the increase in temperatures (and night heat, therefore) is “without a doubt” the element that “better evidence that the Canary Islands climate is changing.” The study that signs with the rest of the ULL colleagues contributes even more details of it.
Before, the normal thing was that the nights with minimal exceeding twenty degrees were concentrated in the summer months. Now, however, they also extend in the second half of the course. For example: in Teror (Gran Canaria), every tropical nights between 1950 and 1980 occurred during the months of July and August. Currently, it is common to observe them in June, September, October and even March and April.
The conclusions of the investigation suggest that the season of tropical nights in the Autonomous Community has extended about three months in recent seventy years, colonizing an important part of autumn. And in the coast it is where they spend it worse. There, some locations, such as the capital of La Gomera or the Barrio de la Feria, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, can register more than four consecutive months with the minimums above twenty degrees.
It is an suffocating reality that mainly affects the coast of the archipelago in an increasingly uninterrupted way and whose impact varies depending on the altitude. Another paradigmatic case: at the Lanzarote airport, located in the reef a little more than ten meters above sea level, the tropical nights ascend seventy per year, while, in the municipality of Tías, less than ten kilometers from the point Previous, but at 370 meters high, six are barely registered.
“The greatest contrasts do not occur as a consequence of the greater or lesser degree of urbanization, a phenomenon that would require measurements inside and outside the urban fabric, but are due to the altitudinal level in which each station is located,” concludes the publication.
Despite the latter, the frequency of tropical nights grows faster as it earns in height. While on the coast of the Canary Islands and in the islands of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote they have practically doubled since 1950, between 250 and 650 meters high have multiplied by 3.5, between 650 and 1,000 meters by 5.5 and by above a thousand meters by 17.
To another very different pattern, the equatorial and torrid nights still respond. These do not show any significant increase at the moment and continue to be linked to heat waves. They affect the media and high mountain areas, victims of a meteorological phenomenon that exposes them to extreme temperatures in the summer months. The high mountain of the archipelago counts 31 nights of this style per year. Decades ago, however, they were non -existent.
“When we talk about nights are getting warmer and more frequent there is an element that comes into play, which is health. And we know that there is a direct correlation between high night temperatures and mortality, ”says Díaz.
The doctor in Physical Geography and Climatologist at the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) Dominc Royé details that high night temperatures “can exacerbate heat -related risks not only by prolonging thermal stress, but also by depriving the human body of rest essential nocturnal ”.
After a day of embarrassment, a continuation of it during the night, even on a smaller scale, prevents the body from cooling. The necessary thermoregulation process does not arrive. And the initial stage of sleep, the most sensitive compared to later, adds Royé, “can show greater alterations due to the cumulative effect of thermal stress.”
The night heat is able to aggravate pre -existing diseases, especially cardiovascular and respiratory, the CSIC researcher continues, by affecting the body’s ability to regulate its temperature and rest properly. “In addition, people with less resources have less access to cooling measures, which increases their vulnerability,” says Royé.
He and other scientific colleagues published a study in 2021 in the magazine Epidemiology in which they concluded that hot nights are “strongly associated” with deaths due to specific causes. The relative risk of mortality due to the excess of this type of night varied from 12% in France to 37% in Portugal. “[A] greater excess or duration [del episodio]greater is the risk, ”summarizes the expert.
How to adapt to this new reality is the real challenge. Abel Díaz emphasizes that the most vulnerable must be protected “and this happens, among other issues, for constituting a good network of climatic shelters, both interior and exterior.”
Royé, on the other hand, recognizes that the options to reduce interior temperatures “are limited (opening the windows at night may no longer work), and that can lead to a general increase in exposure.” In their opinion, the measures of adaptation and protection against night heat have to intensify, “especially in the well -known context of urban environments with large socio -economic differentials”, and multiply green spaces to mitigate the impacts of the heat islands.
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