Half of Spain has suffered temperature increases of more than 1.5 ºC in 60 years

70% of the population of Spain has suffered increases in temperatures greater than 1.5 ºC in the last 60 years. This has meant that 50% of the territory and 51% of the municipalities have exceeded that threshold. The goal of 1.5 ºC is the global global objective of temperature increase agreed by the Paris agreement against climate change.

All of these are the conclusions of the latest Sustainability Observatory report where for the first time the data of the population and the municipalities are crossed with the temperatures, comparing the period 1961-1970 with the period 2009-2018. Temperatures have risen in Spain by 1.7 ºC since pre-industrial times, and 1.3 ºC in the last 60 years, according to data from the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet).

The data is released when the southern half of Spain and the Mediterranean area face a strong risk of meteorological, hydrological and agricultural drought if there is no rainfall in the months.

The report adds that 38% of the surface of Spain has registered temperatures between 1.5 ºC and 1.99 ºC, and another 12% has had records above 2 ºC. All this has had “its impact on ecosystems, the level of evapotranspiration, circulating water or plant growth,” explains Fernando Prieto, director of the Sustainability Observatory.

The map shows that the territories that have experienced the greatest increase in temperatures are located mainly in high areas of the two plateaus and in the low areas of coastal mountains on the Cantabrian coast and Galicia. The large inland river valleys seem to experience smaller increases, except for the Ebro valley.

The areas with rises above 1.5ºC correspond mainly to the center of the peninsula, especially the Madrid area, the Ebro valley, the Seville area, Cádiz, areas of Catalonia, and some areas of the Galician coast, as well as in Balearic Islands, north of Tenerife and Lanzarote and the island of El Hierro.

uneven distribution

“The 8,198 municipalities and territories considered on the map show an average increase in annual temperature in the period considered of 1.48 ºC on average,” says Raúl Estévez, from the Sustainability Observatory. The study does not record a decrease in temperature in any municipal district.

“The warming is not distributed equally throughout the territory, it does not matter either in Spain or throughout the planet, and for this reason it is very important to determine which are the points where the temperature has increased the most to initiate adaptation activities” he affirms Fernando Prieto of the Sustainability Observatory

Catalan Pyrenees

The maximum increase occurs in Llívia (3.26 ºC), in Alt Empordà, on the northern slopes of the Pyrenees, explains Raúl Estévez. An increase of 3 ºC has been observed in nine municipalities and six of them occur in the Catalan Pyrenees (Llívia, Alp, Das, Fontanals de Cerdanya, Riu de Cerdanya, and Castellar de n’Hug), according to the models used.

“Throughout the entire Pyrenean mountain range, areas with strong and low temperature increases alternate, which is probably determined by the orography of the mountain that make up very particular situations and microclimates,” says Fernando Prieto.

The province of Madrid has increased its temperature a lot (2.65 ºC on average) except in the municipalities of the north cornice of the Sierra. In addition to the climatic aspects, the intense urbanization of the territory throughout the province has certainly contributed to boosting the thermal rise. There has also been a very strong increase in Mallorca and Menorca (2.16ºC), but not in the Pitiusas.

Fernando Prieto points out that “it is necessary to undertake detailed plans, provide budgets and carry out at once the adaptation plans to climate change at the state level, by autonomous communities and by each city council, to face climate change that, as shown by these maps, it’s here.”

To prepare this study, the data of the Spanish population by municipalities have been crossed with the data from the Copernicus program and the European Center for Medium-Term Weather Forecasting (ECMWF). The data provides estimated temperature values at two meters from the ground and covers a grid with cells 5.5 x 5.5 km in size and then has been projected over the municipal limits. The data between the average temperatures of the two decades considered (1961-1970 and 2009-2018) were subsequently compared to calculate the value of the temperature variation that occurred. Each European municipality was associated with one of the cells, taking into account urban density.

Source: The Vanguard