Spring is winding down and summer is advancing on the calendar. Every time it reaches 30 degrees earlier in Spain. If in the sixties and eighties the first day of summer was registered for the first time at the beginning of May, now it is reached in April, on average. Almost a month before. Climate change extends the summer and shortens part of the spring and a good part of the autumn.
2023 is no exception to the trend of the last two decades. Since the beginning of the year, temperatures have exceeded 30 degrees in March and April in several parts of the territory where it is not usual to reach such high temperatures at this time of the year.
If 2022 closed as the warmest since records began in 1961, 2023 is on track to reissue the ephemeris. In April alone, a total of 24 meteorological stations of the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) exceeded the maximum temperature record for that month on Thursday.
Although the advance of summer is perceptible throughout the Peninsula, in places such as Andalusia, Murcia and the rest of the Mediterranean coast the phenomenon is accentuated, according to the spatial and temporal data of the Aemet analyzed by La Vanguard
The examples are various. At the Valencia airport, located a few kilometers from the sea line, the 30º C threshold was already exceeded on March 13. A very advanced date compared to the period between 1960 and 1990, when normally reached this figure at the end of May. Also in Tortosa, 30º C was reached earlier than expected. The weather station, located on a hill on the right bank of the Ebro river, exceeded 30º C on March 31. Practically two months earlier than what happened during the period between 1960 and 1990.
Also at the airport of Seville, Granada and Córdoba, maximums of 30º C were reached during the month of April, a very advanced figure compared to the reference period, when this happened at the end of May. The same thing happened in the town of Talavera de la Reina in Toledo and Torrejón de Ardoz in Madrid.
From the Aemet, the spokesperson Rubén del Campo said it at the time: “Summer eats away at spring and this will become more and more common”. Aemet’s last report on the matter published in May 2022 already suggested that the summer heat had advanced by 20 to 40 days on average in the last seven decades. If spring is becoming more and more like summer, summer will also be getting warmer. Forecasts indicate that in the coming decades heat waves in Spain could reach maximums of 50º C.
The list of negative impacts is immense, emphasizes Fernando Valladares, scientist and publicist at the Superior Council of Scientific Research (CSIC): “Any economic, cultural and social activity is directly affected by this advance of heat”. When Valladares speaks of consequences, he refers to the increased risk of fires, extreme weather phenomena, the food system being at risk and the lack of water, among many other factors.
As climate change progresses, it is expected that temperatures will continue to increase in Spain and throughout the world. According to the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), temperatures in the Iberian Peninsula are expected to increase by around 2.5º C by the end of the century if no measures are taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
