Spain – Page 3 – Desdemona Despair

Surface temperatures anomalies in Europe, 31 December 2022 - 2 January 2023. Temperatures are in degrees Celsius. On New Year’s Day, at least seven countries saw their warmest January weather on record as temperatures surged to springtime levels: Latvia hit 52 degrees (11.1 Celsius); Denmark 54.7 degrees (12.6 Celsius); Lithuania 58.3 degrees (14.6 Celsius); Belarus 61.5 degrees (16.4 Celsius); the Netherlands 62.4 degrees (16.9 Celsius); Poland 66.2 degrees (19.0 Celsius); and the Czech Republic 67.3 degrees (19.6 Celsius). Graphic: Weatherbell.com

January 2, 2023

Thousands of records shattered in historic winter warm spell in Europe – At least seven countries saw warmest January weather on record on New Year’s Day – “It’s the most extreme event ever seen in European climatology. Nothing stands close to this.”

By Ian Livingston 2 January 2023 (The Washington Post) – As 2022 turned to 2023, an exceptionally strong wintertime heat dome pounced on much of Europe, producing unprecedented warmth for January. As temperatures soared 18 to 36 degrees Fahrenheit (10 to 20 Celsius) above normal from France to western Russia, thousands of records were broken […]

The carcass of an elephant that died during the drought is seen in the Shaba National Reserve, Isiolo county, Kenya, 22 September 2022. Photo: Baz Ratner / REUTERS

December 31, 2022

Reuters pictures of the year: Extreme weather in 2022

30 December 2022 (Reuters) – From historic droughts to floods, climate change worsened weather extremes in 2022. See more 2022 extreme weather and environment photos from Reuters here and here. Pictures of the year: Extreme weather in 2022

Maasai children stand beside a zebra that local residents say died due to drought, as they graze their cattle at Ilangeruani village, near Lake Magadi, in Kenya, on 9 November 2022. Photo: Brian Inganga / AP Photo

December 31, 2022

In 2022, AP photographers captured pain of a changing planet

By Peter Prengaman 16 December 2022 (AP) – In 2022, Associated Press photographers captured signs of a planet in distress as climate change reshaped many lives. That distress was seen in the scarred landscapes in places where the rains failed to come. It was felt in walloping storms, land-engulfing floods, suffocating heat and wildfires no […]

A local resident fights a forest fire with a shovel during a wildfire in Tabara, north-west Spain, Tuesday, 19 July 2022. Spain’s national weather service said preliminary data indicates that 2022 will finish with average daily temperatures above 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time since records started in 1961. It says that the four hottest years on record for the southern European country have all come since 2015. Photo: Bernat Armangue / AP Photo

December 23, 2022

Spain records hottest year ever in 2022 – Four hottest years on record for Spain have all come since 2015

MADRID, 21 December 2022 (AP) – Spain is about to conclude its hottest year on record, the nation’s weather service said Wednesday. Spain’s national weather service said preliminary data indicates that 2022 will finish with average daily temperatures above 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time since records started in 1961. The […]

Sea surface temperature anomalies in the Mediterranean Sea on 19 June 2022. Graphic: European Union / Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service

December 17, 2022

Europe’s 2022 heatwave may have caused more than 20,000 “excess” deaths – “I consider this the most impactful heatwave since 2003”

By Juliette Portala 24 November 2022 (Reuters) – Summer heatwaves in France, Germany, Spain, and Britain led to more than 20,000 “excess” deaths, a report compiling official figures said on Thursday. Temperatures hit nearly 40 degrees Celsius or above from Paris to London in 2022 and climate scientists from the World Weather Attribution group found […]

Landsat images from 21 February 2000 (left) and 27 July 2019 (right) illustrating glacier retreat on top of Mount Kilimanjaro (United Republic of Tanzania). Photo: U.S. Geological Survey

November 19, 2022

Kilimanjaro’s and Africa’s last glaciers to go by 2050, says UN – “What is quite unprecedented in the historical record is how quickly this is happening”

By Patrick Hughes 3 November 2022 (BBC News) – Glaciers across the globe – including the last ones in Africa – will be unavoidably lost by 2050 due to climate change, the UN says in a report [UNESCO finds that some iconic World Heritage glaciers will disappear by 2050 –Des]. Glaciers in a third of […]

Potential effect of high-temperature days on global life evaluations, 2021-2030. The estimated 17 percent drop in life evaluation by 2030 again does not take adaptability and recovery into account. However, this estimation is based on the increase in the number of high-heat days people will face globally by 2030, and is substantively meaningful. Graphic: Gallup

September 25, 2022

Rising global temperatures linked to declining wellbeing – “The analysis paints a bleak picture of the future”

By Benedicte Clouet and Nicole Willcoxon 31 August 2022 (Gallup) – As people around the world suffer through concurrent extreme heat waves, droughts, and wildfires, the effects of climate change are becoming a grim, global reality. Despite robust evidence of the environmental and economic costs of rising temperatures, far less is known about how these […]

The area of forest fires recorded in 2022 for 11 European countries and the Mediterranean basin, compared with the average from 2006 to 2021. Data are current to 21 July 2022. Data: European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). Graphic: Le Monde

July 21, 2022

Wildfires in Europe have never been as large as in the summer of 2022 – In France and Spain, summer fires are nearly six times larger than average

By Pierre Breteau 21 July 2022 (Le Monde) – From Gironde to Brittany, France is burning as drought and exceptional heat rage. The entire European Union (EU) is also suffering from extreme weather conditions. And most of the EU 27 Member States have already suffered from fires that have destroyed areas of forest that are far greater […]

A wildfire burns near a wind turbine at night outside Tabara, Zamora, during the second heatwave of the year in Spain, 18 July 2022. Photo: Isabel Infantes / REUTERS

July 19, 2022

UK shatters record for highest temperature as Europe sizzles – Major incident declared in London as fires burn – Dozens of temperature records fall in France as fires rage in southwest

By Danica Kirka and Jill Lawless 19 July 2022 LONDON (AP) – Britain shattered its record for highest temperature ever registered Tuesday amid a heat wave that has seared swaths of Europe — and the national weather forecaster predicted it would get hotter still in a country ill prepared for such extremes. The typically temperate nation […]

Aerial view of the dried-up riverbed at the confluence of the Ticino and Po rivers at Ponte della Becca, near Linarolo, Italy. Never since weather records began 70 years ago has the water level of the Po been lower. Scientists have been warning of increasing drought in northern Italy for many years. Photo: Piero Cruciatti / AFP / Getty Images

July 8, 2022

EU countries forced to restrict drinking water access – Worst drought in 70 years paralyzes agriculture in Italy – “The demand doesn’t stop growing”

By Tim Schauenberg 7 July 2022 (DW) – Amplified by human-induced climate change and water over-consumption, southern Europeans are feeling the consequences of more extreme heat waves and longer droughts. Now governments from Portugal to Italy are calling on citizens to limit water use to the bare minimum. But in some places, this is not […]