Not only in Italy, the heat wave also affects the Arctic region where, in the Svalbard Islands which are located well above the Arctic Circle, 15 degrees centigrade have been exceeded.
"The anomalies are intensifying and prolonging", explained metrologist and climatologist Andrea Merlone, of the National Institute of Metrological Research (Inrim) and of the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council (Isp-Cnr), at the end of a one-month mission in the polar area.
"In mid-May, we recorded 15.4 ° C in the city of Longyearbyen, Svalbard, located at 78 ° N. These are temperatures rarely reached in that remote area even in July," Merlone said.
"This means - he added - that what we are witnessing in these days in our latitudes occurs in an amplified way in the Arctic".
According to the forecast models, the first places to feel global climate change are precisely the regions around the North Pole and the confirmation comes from the data, including those detected by the network of sensors installed in recent years such as that of the Italian metrology laboratory in Ny- Ålesund (at 79 ° N) in operation since 2017. “The instruments read correctly.
Here as in the Arctic ”, said Merlone on his return from a one-month mission which had among the objectives that of validating the data and verifying the correct functioning of all the instruments.
“And the datasets, even those recorded with modern instruments, all give us the same results, independently: temperatures rise, anomalies intensify and the duration of events increases,” he added.
The reduction in the difference between the equator and the pole, which has been underway for some time, brings great heat to different latitudes and heat waves and droughts are not only more frequent, but are more intense and more persistent.
Just what is happening now in Italy.
