Spring languishes and summer is early on the calendar. Each time 30 degrees are reached earlier in Spain. If during the sixties and eighties the first day of summer was recorded for the first time at the beginning of May, now it is reached in April, on average. Almost a month before. Climate change extends summer in time and cuts part of spring and a good part of autumn.
If 2022 closed as the warmest since records began in 1961, 2023 is on the way to reissue the date. Only in April, a total of 24 meteorological stations of the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) exceeded the maximum temperature record for this month last Thursday.
Although the advance of summer is perceptible throughout the peninsula, in places like Andalusia, Murcia and the rest of the Mediterranean coast the phenomenon is accentuated, according to AEMET space-time data analyzed by La Vanguardia.
The examples are multiple. At the Valencia Airport, located a few kilometers from the sea line, the threshold of 30 ºC was exceeded on March 13. A very advanced date compared to the period between 1960 and 1990, when this figure was usually reached at the end of May.
Also in Tortosa, 30 ºC was reached earlier than expected. The weather station, located on a hill on the right bank of the Ebro River, exceeded 30 ºC on March 31. Practically two months before what happened during the period between 1960 and 1990.
At the Seville, Granada and Córdoba Airports, maximum temperatures of 30 ºC were exceeded this April, a very advanced figure compared to the reference period, in which this occurred at the end of May. The same thing happened in the Toledo town of Talavera de la Reina and in Torrejón de Ardoz in Madrid.
From the Aemet, the spokesman Rubén del Campo said it at the time: “Summer eats ground at spring and this is going to be more and more common.” The last Aemet report on the matter published in May 2022 already advanced that the summer heat had come forward between 20 and 40 days, on average, in the last seven decades. If spring becomes more and more like summer, summer will also become warmer. Forecasts indicate that in the coming decades heat waves in Spain could leave highs of 50 ºC.
The list of negative impact is immense, underlines Fernando Valladares, scientist and disseminator at the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC): “Any economic, cultural and social activity is directly affected by this advance in heat.” When Valladares talks about consequences, he refers to the increased risk of fires, extreme weather events, the risk of the food system, and the lack of water, among many other factors.
As climate change progresses, temperatures are expected to continue to rise in Spain and around the world. According to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), temperatures in the Iberian Peninsula are expected to increase by around 2.5ºC between now and the end of the century if measures are not taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse gases.
