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"The Mediterranean is boiling, the amount of heat accumulated is enormous"

2022-08-30T10:52:55.395Z


Carlo Buontempo, director of climate change for the EU's Copernicus programme, warns of the danger of torrential storms after an extremely hot and dry summer in Europe


Carlo Buontempo, EU Copernicus climate change director, poses for an interview with EL PAÍS.CRISTÓBAL CASTRO

Carlo Buontempo (Rome, 49 years old) is the director of the Copernicus Climate Change service, which is part of the European Union Space Program.

Thanks to the European satellite system, Copernicus offers open information on different variables related to global warming and climate.

This summer, Buontempo, a doctor in physics and who until 2016 worked for the Met Office (the United Kingdom's meteorological service), and his team are registering some exceptional impacts due to their hardness and extension, as detailed in this telephone interview.

Ask.

Is the situation that Europe is experiencing of extreme heat, fires and drought normal?

Response.

It is not normal.

It is enough to look back a little and such hot summers, with such anomalies of humidity and drought, have not been seen in many years.

Which, in that sense, is not normal.

It is an exceptional event, very strong and very extensive.

P.

Regarding the fires, is it being a hard summer in all of Europe?

A.

It depends on the place.

We had some very strong and intense fires, like the one in the southwestern part of France.

We have also had many fires in Spain, but in Portugal it is a more or less normal year, not exceptional.

In Italy there were significant fires... We still don't have a complete pan-European view on the fires.

In some countries it will surely be one of the years with the most forest area burned, for example, in Spain.

P.

Regarding the temperatures, is it being abnormal this summer?

R.

Absolutely.

In the case of temperature, we can fix it better, because this variable is very well observed, especially in Europe.

And we have experienced several important things: like a series of heat waves that affected us since the end of spring, because the first one was in May.

That is very early.

Heat waves followed in June, July and now August.

That is, many very extreme events and with new records for maximum temperatures in almost all countries.

It has been a very hot summer.

We still have to wait until the end to say if this was the hottest summer ever on record.

The hottest on record so far was last year.

The other really exceptional fact, which worries me a lot, is the anomaly in the temperature of the Mediterranean.

The Mediterranean is boiling

the temperature is five or six degrees above the normal value.

That has an impact not just now, but in the coming weeks and months.

It is like an energy store, the amount of heat accumulated is enormous.

More information

An extreme and record summer: Spain has lived 42 days trapped in heat waves since June

Q.

And why is it boiling?

R.

We have had several different phenomena that have influenced.

For one thing, at the end of spring we had a mass of very hot air coming over Europe from Africa.

There were temperature records in the United Kingdom, in Germany, in Holland... Something incredible.

That was more of a translation of hot air.

Then what we see is a fairly static high pressure system which basically means that in many areas of central and western Europe we had almost no precipitation.

In other words, we did not have Atlantic disturbances that brought water and cooled the climate a little, which has generated a significant anomaly.

The two things have surely played an important role in heating the water.

But the water is not only warming in the Mediterranean and we know that this is related to climate change.

Q.

Does so much energy accumulated in the Mediterranean imply that there is a greater risk of strong storms?

R.

Yes, that is one of the ingredients to have extreme events like the ones we saw last year or the year before with very strong precipitation in a few hours.

But disturbances of Atlantic origin that reach southern Europe are also needed.

We already have one of the ingredients, which is super-high water temperature and a lot of humidity in the lower layers of the atmosphere.

And when the anticyclone recedes and Atlantic disturbances begin to arrive, we will have the other variant.

This is why we may see extreme events.

Although it is also possible that this anticyclone that started earlier than normal will remain beyond what would be normal... That is why we cannot say that it is sure to happen;

what we can say is that we already have one of the ingredients.

P.

If the anticyclone continues, we will have another bad news, which is a worsening of the drought.

A.

Yes. The end of summer and the beginning of autumn is a difficult situation to foresee at a meteorological level.

The information we have, which is not very reliable because it is a difficult period, goes in that direction.

In other words, the high pressure, especially in the easternmost part of the Mediterranean, will remain.

With climate change, waves that seem so extreme to us now will be more common in the future and potentially even more intense

P.

In all this extreme summer that Europe is experiencing, what role does climate change play?

R.

We know that the global temperature of the planet has increased and also the temperature of the sea.

Each of the heat waves we've seen has its weather history, but we know they're totally consistent with what we expect to happen with climate change.

And what we hope is that these waves that seem so extreme to us now will be more common in the future and potentially even more intense.

Now we see it as an exceptional event, but in the future it will be less exceptional.

The same happens with the temperature of the sea, whose increase is totally consistent with what we know about climate change.

Because in the end climate change is a problem of energy balance, of the energy that comes from the sun and the energy that the planet can return to space.

Since we have an excess of greenhouse gases,

Buontempo poses for the interview.CRISTÓBAL CASTRO

Q.

Is this extreme summer an exception or is it part of a trend?

A.

Climate history is never a straight line, there are always many variations from one year to another.

And this year is particularly exceptional.

What we can say is that the increase in hot years is somewhat consistent and in line with what we expect from climate change.

But there has always been climate variability because the system is chaotic and varies independently of climate change.

P.

There are scientists who maintain that the models may have fallen short, that something so intense was not expected from climate change so soon.

Do you share that vision?

R.

It is difficult to analyze it on a particular event or on a single year.

If you look at what the real increase in temperature has been in recent years and compare it with what the models indicated 15 or 20 years ago, it seems to me that the trend was well calculated.

However, if they were wrong - something I do not share - they would be more optimistic about what has happened.

Scientists are often criticized for being catastrophic and speaking of a future that is too negative.

And if the models were wrong, it would be because they were not catastrophic enough.

This summer has been very extreme and I think a lot of people who were questioning climate change have realized that it's here

Q.

How can humanity get out of this quagmire it has gotten into?

A.

Climate science is pretty clear.

We cannot predict all the impacts in all sectors, but we are very clear about the reasons: climate change is connected to human activities and the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

That is why the solution has to go through a system where the concentration of these gases, not just the emissions, go down.

It's essential.

Q.

Beyond Europe, do we seem to be experiencing an extreme summer in many other parts of the Northern Hemisphere as well?

R.

Like every year, depending on where you look, there are more or less impacts.

Perhaps last year in North America was the most extreme summer with the fires in Canada and California, which were brutal.

But there are anomalies in so many places.

Although Europe is a special place, because at the summer temperature level, the warming is very tangible.

I think that we human beings are not very good at acting or responding to problems that are far away from us.

We have a hard time making decisions based on models or what scientists say.

But we do know how to react when we touch things directly.

And this summer has been very extreme and I think a lot of people who were maybe questioning scientific conclusions or climate change have realized that it's here.

The impact is very direct.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-08-30

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