INTERVIEW - Spanish Weather Patterns Point to Climate Change
Date: 18-Oct-06
Country: SPAIN
Author: Julia Hayley
Spain logged the driest year since records began in 2005, the hottest May temperatures ever this year and has had a series of winters that are milder than usual.
"What we are seeing is an accumulation of records," says the National Meteorological Institute's (INM) Angel Rivera, who has been forecasting Spanish weather patterns for 30 years.
This year has also set a new record for average summer temperatures, although the peaks fell short of 2003.
"This accumulation of evidence, with high temperatures, intense drought and heavy rain, taken together is worrying and could be in line with climate change," Rivera told Reuters in an interview.
Spain is influenced by the Mediterranean and by its proximity to Africa and therefore is heating up slightly faster than much of the rest of Europe.
That means its dry regions will become drier and more arid and water will become scarcer, both because it rains less and because more of the rainfall evaporates.
Climate models tend to point to world temperatures rising 2 or 3 degrees Celsius on average over 40 or 50 years.
That does not sound too bad perhaps, but Rivera says that in Spain, where weather patterns are already extreme, summer peaks could rise by proportionally more.
In cities like Madrid or Seville, where they already hit 45 Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) at least briefly most summers, life is likely to become considerably more uncomfortable.
In Spain it looks as if heat waves in summer will become more frequent and more intense. In winter there will be fewer days below zero and rain will become erratic, with more Mediterranean storms and less of the persistent Atlantic front type rain that is vital for replenishing reservoirs and aquifers, Rivera said.
"If the climate models prove correct, as now looks likely to be the case, the situation in a few decades could be truly worrying."
"Unfortunately what looks likely is that Spain will become increasingly drier and more arid because of the uneven distribution of the rainfall," Rivera said.
Climate change has happened before in the history of the Earth, but always over hundreds or thousands of years, he noted.
This time, with greenhouse gas emissions from industrial nations burning fossil fuels the main culprit, the same changes are happening in just a few decades.
"It's not easy for species to adapt that fast," Rivera said.