Spain's Weather Promises To Become More Volatile, Extreme - Reuters

[hatrack]

MADRID - Recent weather patterns point to climate change already having an impact in Spain and the country is likely to become hotter and more arid, a weather expert said on Monday. Spain logged the driest year since records began in 2005, the hottest May temperatures ever this year and has had a series of winters that are milder than usual. "What we are seeing is an accumulation of records," says the National Meteorological Institute's (INM) Angel Rivera, who has been forecasting Spanish weather patterns for 30 years.

This year has also set a new record for average summer temperatures, although the peaks fell short of 2003. "This accumulation of evidence, with high temperatures, intense drought and heavy rain, taken together is worrying and could be in line with climate change," Rivera told Reuters in an interview. Spain is influenced by the Mediterranean and by its proximity to Africa and therefore is heating up slightly faster than much of the rest of Europe. That means its dry regions will become drier and more arid and water will become scarcer, both because it rains less and because more of the rainfall evaporates.

Climate models tend to point to world temperatures rising 2 or 3 degrees Celsius on average over 40 or 50 years. That does not sound too bad perhaps, but Rivera says that in Spain, where weather patterns are already extreme, summer peaks could rise by proportionally more. In cities like Madrid or Seville, where they already hit 45 Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) at least briefly most summers, life is likely to become considerably more uncomfortable.

EDIT

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/38531/story.htm