Cristina Hodgson
SUMMER has officially begun and will bring ‘hotter than average’ temperatures, weather agency AEMET has predicted.
Ending on September 22, this year’s sunny season will be at least one degree higher than the historical average.
According to Jose Maria Sanchez-Laulhe, director of the Malaga Meteorological Centre, temperature rises have been occurring since 2000 with the anomaly of 2013, the only year in the series in which there was a drop in the average temperature compared to the previous year.
This warmer than usual summer has been preceded by a spring that has been characterised by rising average temperatures, not so much by high maximum temperatures, but by minimum temperatures—which have registered more than one degree above the historical record.
In fact, according to official records, the Iberian Peninsula has been 0.4 degrees warmer than usual over the last three months, a figure that reflects the upward trend of the thermometer.
Going on the anomalies that Malaga has experienced this spring, including breaking the all time high since official records began in 1942 for sizzling temperatures in May—when the gauge, located the weather station at the Malaga-Costa del Sol Airport, shot up to 35.4ºC—the forecast for the imminent summer is that temperatures will be above average throughout much of Spain, especially in the east of the peninsula and the Balearic Islands.
Sanchez-Laulhe blames this persistent thermal anomaly on ‘greenhouse gases and climate change.’
“Beyond the cooling of the 1970s, the last few years have been the highest on record, so such a prolonged trend could only be explained by this effect.” Sanchez-Laulhe said.
Last year was the fourth hottest year on record at Malaga Airport, a figure that Sanchez-Laulhe expects to be repeated this summer season.
READ MORE:
- LONG HOT SUMMER: Weather experts in Spain’s Valencia region predict longer and warmer season this year
- Spain’s Malaga breaks all time record for sizzling temperatures in May
