After the very high temperatures recently in Turkey, Greece and Italy, Spain is now also experiencing the heat. The temperature today in the southwest was well above 40 degrees. In Cordoba, the mercury degree rose to 46 degrees.
Temperature records are also broken in southern Mediterranean countries. These extreme heat are likely to become more common in the Mediterranean, according to a report by the United Nations’ IPCC Climate Committee this week.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change considered regional differences for the first time. The Earth is not warming to the same degree everywhere: around the Mediterranean it happens faster than average. The report says that if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced quickly, temperatures above 50 degrees will not be an exception there later in the century.
“The desert treads over the Mediterranean, as it were. The countries there are getting hotter and drier,” says KNMI’s Ryan Harzma. He is the lead author of the chapter of the IPCC report covering the Mediterranean region in detail.
Three reasons
There are three main reasons why this region is likely to be warming at a rapid pace, says Harsma. Temperatures can rise faster in dry areas. “It works just like the human body, which can lose heat through sweating. If there is really little water or moisture in an area, the temperature rises sharply, because that is the only way the Earth can release heat. ” This creates what is called a feedback process of more drying and more heating.
On this map you can see temperature measurements from this summer. In Spain, it remains to be seen how hot it gets this weekend:
