Spain closes one of the three driest years since 1961: “A very different climate to the one we know is coming”

This hydrological year, which started on October 1 and ends on September 30, has rained 25% less than usual With global warming, “the great unknown is rain: it rains less, but with higher temperatures we do not know what what is going to happen”By the middle of the century, “summers like this year may be common: this is indeed a new normality”The hydrological year concludes – it will officially close in a few days, on September 30- and the diagnosis It is clear: “It is on its way to being among one of the three driest in the historical series, which starts in 1961”. Rubén del Campo, spokesman for the AEMET, confirms this with data that leaves no room for doubt. Since October 1 of last year, the accumulated rainfall in Spain has been estimated at 463 mm (as of September 20). It has rained 25% less than usual in that period. “It is being a very dry year throughout Spain, but especially in the west, northeast and south of Andalusia,” explains the meteorologist. “On the eastern coast of Malaga, the coast of Granada and the west of Almeria, the rains do not even reach half of normal.” The situation is worrying in Galicia, a good part of Castilla y León, a good part of Extremadura and western Andalusia. And in the east of Catalonia, where “the rain that falls does not even reach three quarters of what is usual,” Del Campo underlines. The peninsula, inverted “On the other hand, in Levante it has rained more than normal, some areas of the east have registered twice as much rain as normal.” In addition to the alarming nature of the general situation, the latter is still striking, as meteorologists have been pointing out for months. year “we are seeing a different atmospheric pattern,” explains Del Campo. “Atlantic storms are more absent.” On the other hand, “the Mediterranean storms are more present. We have the peninsula upside down, with more rains in Levante and less in the west”, confirms Del Campo. Reservoir water: the minimum in 30 years “We barely have a third of the reservoir water capacity available,” warns the AEMET spokesman. And this despite the recent rains, which have not been of much use in that regard. “The inflow of water has not compensated for the outflow, and the reservoirs have dropped a little more.” Drought also in autumn?: “Hopefully we’re wrong”The meteorological drought began in winter, at the end of February, and has lasted seven months. The spring ended with a drought, “despite the rains of March and April.” Summer ends with drought. Autumn, which began this Friday, can it end the same way? “Seasonal predictions indicate less rain than usual. If the forecast is true, there is a high probability that the meteorological drought will persist at the end of autumn”, Del Campo assures. Although he cautions: “Seasonal predictions for the fall are more complicated, they are not as accurate as those for the summer. There is more uncertainty.” And he confesses his concern: “Hopefully the prediction doesn’t come true, hopefully we’re wrong…”. Spain is becoming arid The fact is that we are coming out of an extremely hot summer, and we are facing an autumn that will be dry and hot as well. The trend is worrying. And quite clear, for meteorologists and climatologists. “Spain is becoming arid, it is becoming more and more arid”, warns Del Campo. “It rains less, and it also rains differently. Dry periods are longer, and on rainy days, the rain is torrential. That causes more erosion, it is rain that washes away the land, instead of soaking it.” He explains that in the peninsula and the Balearic Islands there are three climates: cold, temperate and arid. But “as a consequence of the increase in temperature that we have registered since the 1950s (1.4 degrees), and also due to a slight decrease in rainfall since that decade (between 10% and 12% less), many temperate climates have become arid climates. For meteorologists and climatologists, this entire panorama is consistent with the global warming process whose effects we have been experiencing for two decades. Evidence of global warming The extreme heat this summer, the lack of rain, the prolonged weather drought (and it only affects Spain, and also a good part of Europe), the temperature records registered in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, extreme and anomalous phenomena such as Hurricane Danielle…, “all this, added together, is evidence of this warming process”, points out Jorge Olcina, director of the Climatology Laboratory of the University of Alicante. A warming that, “in Spain, has three clear consequences”. He explains them: our climate is becoming less comfortable thermally: it is getting hotter and hotter, and we also have a very prolonged heat during the nights (tropical nights) the way it rains is changing: it rains fewer and fewer days, and when it rains, it does more intensely (100 liters per m2 can fall in an hour, for example, and that is not usable rain) extreme events (heat, hail, maritime storms, torrential rains…) are becoming more and more frequent, because the climate loses regularityThis year has only confirmed all this. “This year confirms this trend. The same trend is maintained as in the last two decades, “says Olcina. “The warming process is accelerating from 2010 to now. Since the beginning of this century, evidence began to appear, but since 2010 there have been more abnormal phenomena – El Niño, explosive storms, hurricanes at abnormal latitudes…” Why? “Because the process is accelerated.” Global warming “is not a regularly linear process”, recalls the climatologist. How will it rain with 2 degrees more? Regarding the rain, Olcina explains that not everything is as clear as with the increase in temperatures. “The big unknown is the rain. There is a background trend, that it rains less, but with higher temperatures we don’t know what will happen”. If the temperature rises 2 degrees by the end of the century, a more than likely scenario right now, what implications will it have rainfall? “It is unknown, it is not clear, but the result will never be more favorable than what we have now. That is to say, the unknown is how bad this effect is going to be in the rains, but it is sure that it is not going to be better than what we have”. Because, in addition, the climatologist points out that “although the objective is not to exceed 2 degrees by the end of the century, the latest reports say that in 2060 we will have already exceeded 2 degrees. And that, by the end of the 2030s, we will be at a 1.5 degree rise.” Olcina warns that “the effects of this increase in temperatures on atmospheric dynamics can be very radical.” This has only just begun And this is not something that is coming, warns Olcina, but rather we are already working on it. “We are already experiencing the first evidence of this warming process.” But they have only just begun. “A 21st century awaits us marked by climate change that will increasingly present more evidence and regional manifestations. The effects that are manifesting are already serious, and they are going to get worse”. Because the underlying process – greenhouse gas emissions – cannot be stopped, the climatologist recalls. Olcina is not at all optimistic about medium-term climate projections. “Right now, we are facing the worst case scenario: a very different climate than the one we know, with extreme demonstrations that will be very common.” And in Spain, in addition, another factor must be taken into account. “Spain has a peculiarity, which is the Mediterranean”. And a warm sea, like the one we have seen this summer, “aggravates these effects even more”. In fact, in the IPCC reports on climate change, the Mediterranean region is referred to as a hot post, “one of the hot spots in the world”. Summer has been a warning The climate that is coming will be different, warns Olcina. And the summer we are leaving behind “has been a warning”, an example of what is to come, warns Del Campo. “The average temperature in June, July and August was 24ºC, that is, 2.2 degrees above the average. It has been an extremely hot summer, the one with the highest average temperature in the historical series”, he recalls. And this is “a warning of what is going to be common, probably, in about 30 years.” The meteorologist explains that “even in a moderate emissions scenario (not the worst), the projections indicate that we will have summers 2 degrees warmer than usual.” By mid-century, “summers like this year may be commonplace. This year has been exceptional, but they will be so frequent that the exceptional will be normal”. Del Campo is blunt. “This is really a new normal.”