Warmer winters that we perceive as very cold: “climate amnesia” is to blame

Spain is going through a colder episode than usual, but we have had seven winters with very warm temperatures; Our biases cause us to normalize anomalous temperatures and extreme events
Spain has started the year with temperatures below zero and some historical records, such as the one that the Aemet has measured in Molina de Aragón, Guadalajara, on Three Kings Day: -14ºC during the early morning. However, despite this intense cold, the State Meteorological Agency has advanced that the peninsula is heading for its eighth consecutive winter with thermal values above the reference ones, something that has never happened before. The probability of a warmer than usual winter is 60%, while in the archipelagos it rises to 70%. The paradox is that this climatic data – increasingly warm winters – is not part of the social conversation. Quite the opposite. It is still repeated that in Spain it is “the cold of a lifetime”. In other words, our perception of cold does not always coincide with statistics.

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