The last five decades have each been warmer than the last

It’s been (too) long since each passing year stands out as one of the warmest ever recorded. The climate balance of 2021without going any further, points out that this was one of the seven hottest years recorded in the whole of the planet through the international records of the World Meteorological Organization. In Spain, the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) describes it as the eighth warmest and driest year of this century in the country. In Catalonia, the Meteorological Service (Meteocat) confirms that the temperatures recorded throughout 2021 stood out among the highest recorded in centennial observatories Of the territory. And in Barcelona, ​​the Fabra Observatory adds that 2021 was the driest year, and one of the hottest, in the history of the city.

For understand the reason for these record figures You have to go back at least a century. With the outbreak of the industrial revolution, human activity began to generate huge amounts of greenhouse gases; some gases that, in their fair measure, allow life to exist on earth but that, in excess, impregnate the atmosphere with heat. According to the records, from 1850 to the present emissions have only grown. And this is what, finally, has triggered a global increase in temperatures that has disrupted the climate throughout the planet.

The latest balance of the United Nations on the earth’s climate, in fact, concludes that from the eighties to the present each decade has been warmer than the last. In the long term, according to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the advance of global warming could cause an increase in average temperature of up to two degrees before the end of the century. This figure, in places like the Mediterraneancould translate into a rise in thermometers of between four and seven degrees.

2021, year of global records

It is not necessary to go very far, or speculate about what the world of the future will be like, to illustrate the progress of global warming. The annual balance of the World Meteorological Organization indicates that 2021 was the seventh consecutive year in which the average temperature of the planet was one degree above pre-industrial levelsbetween 1850 and 1900. The global analysis also indicates that last year stood out for the concatenation of extreme weather events all over the planet; from the historic heat wave that left over 50 degrees in Canada to the devastating floods that hit Germany.

In Europe, the Copernicus satellite network detected during 2021 hottest summer ever recorded on the continent, with extreme heat waves and a tsunami of fires throughout the Mediterranean arc. In August, a new temperature record was broken with 48.8 degrees registered in several locations in Sicily (Italy). The European analysis also indicates that during 2021 they beat new records in the concentration of carbon dioxide Y methane in the atmosphere; a sign that global pollution levels, far from falling, continue to rise.

Half a degree more in Spain

The catastrophic global balance of 2021 is also reflected in the data for Spain. The annual report of the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) indicates that the average peninsular temperature was half a degree above the annual mean values. That is, the temperature range that until now was considered normal. Thermometers also rose almost half a degree both in the minimum and in the maximum recorded daily. In autonomies such as Andalusia, the Region of Murcia, the Valencian Community and Catalonia, this increase added up to one degree more than the normal values ​​for each of the territories.

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The annual summary of the Meteorological Service of Catalonia places the increase in temperatures in 2021 as the sixth highest value ever recorded from the Observatori de l’Ebre and the third highest in the historical series of the Fabra Observatory. Regarding rainfall, the Barcelona station also pointed out that, throughout 2021, rainfall barely added half of the usual values ​​of the last century. In a city like Barcelona, ​​where historically it has always rained the same as in Londonthe rain behaved as in Athens or Madrid. The balance of the year, in the words of the meteorologists, closes with a “new, important and sad event”.