If you live in the center of the Iberian Peninsula, it is likely that one of these last nights you have woken up startled by a noise. This year we have received the month of September with electrical storms accompanied by heavy rains and dangerous floods in almost all of the Spanish territory.
Meanwhile, storms of similar depth ravage the rest of Europe. The weather puts the finishing touch to a suffocating summer and the intense heat waves and dramatic fires that have affected the Mediterranean basin throughout the month of August are left behind.
A few weeks earlier, the US National Office for Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed that July 2021 was the hottest month in 142 years on record. On the same dates, precisely, the first part of the latest report of the Panel of Experts on Climate Change (IPCC) was presented, warning that extreme weather events will become more and more frequent.
A little further back on the calendar, many will remember the heavy snowfall that fell in the center of the Peninsula, nicknamed Filomena, and which was the most intense event of its kind in a hundred years.
Are we exaggerating if we relate all these phenomena to climate change? How to distinguish a simple summer storm from one of the ravages caused by human intervention in the increase in global temperature?
One of these sleepless nights caused by the storm, our bedside meteorologist, the air physicist and disseminator at Meteored José Miguel Viñas, wrote the following tweet:
“We are not experiencing one more end-of-summer storm episode; we are witnessing, once again, something historic; the same as the heat wave in August, the same as Filomena in January … All the same year and in the same geographical coordinates ”.
The discussion was about whether the existence of these storms, apparently common in late summer nights, had its origin in the effects of climate change, like many of the extreme phenomena that we have experienced throughout 2021; and it was particularly located in the Spanish territory.
As Viñas explained over the phone to VERY INTERESTING, it is not the occurrence of these events that should call our attention, but their magnitude and frequency.
“Any of these phenomena can be explained by the normal behavior of the climate: snowfall, heat waves …” he begins by explaining. “It is true that there have been other heat waves, other snowfalls, other late-summer storms. They could be normal episodes, but the magnitude of these phenomena, in the context of climate change, and that they occur in various places on the planet, are too many coincidences ”.
What we consider ‘normal’ is changing
Viñas’ thesis resides in the intensity and frequency of phenomena that, although they have always occurred, were nonetheless extraordinary events. At present, many of these events are part of everyday life. “Now, the normal is 40 degrees in summer, which before was something anecdotal. A change is taking place in what we consider normal ”.
Viñas remembers comments from some users on the networks, pointing out the succession of similar events in the past. “For example, it is true that in 1962 there were catastrophic floods in Catalonia, and two months later there was a historic snowfall. 2021 is not the only year in which catastrophic weather events are occurring. What is striking is that, now, practically every year there are ‘extraordinary ‘ episodes, “he replies.
How can climate change contribute to increased storms?
One of the most worrying phenomena, due to its catastrophic consequences, are the floods and floods caused by torrential rains. It is enough to understand where and how storms form to interpret that an atmosphere more loaded with heat than usual could generate more intense storms: “It seems quite clear that the atmosphere contains a greater amount of energy in the form of heat, which is concentrated on the oceans, where storms form. This excess energy, in the end, empowers them ”.
“Now, we must continue studying the climate to understand how this higher energy load is giving rise to an anomalous atmospheric situation ; and how that excess energy, apart from being released, is helping to modify the dynamics of the atmosphere itself ”, the popularizer explains.
More studies are needed to firmly link these events to climate change
At the moment, we can draw partial conclusions based on some studies. The climate expert gives as an example that, during the Canadian heat wave, a conscientious study was published that linked it to climate change, demonstrating that it was impossible for this phenomenon to occur as a result of the natural variation of the climate.
However, Viñas is a friend of prudence. “The categorical statement that these phenomena are caused by climate change cannot be done lightly. The knowledge we have is very broad, but it is still insufficient ”.
Get the latest book by the physicist and popularizer José Miguel Viñas: El tiempo. Everything you would like to know about the meteorological phenomena (Shackleton Books), in the purchase button.
