The world could breach a new average temperature record in 2023 or 2024, fueled by climate change and the anticipated return of the El Nino weather phenomenon, climate scientists say.
In Europe, some countries are planning for unusually warm weather — or already dealing with its arrival.
France will have wildfire-fighting troops and their water-carrying aircraft ready on June 1, one month earlier than usual, to adapt to fires starting earlier than in the past due to climate change, a senior official said.
An unusually dry winter has reduced moisture in the soil and raised fears of a repeat of 2022, when 785,000 hectares were destroyed across Europe – more than double the annual average for the past 16 years.
“Last year we had wildfires as early as June, so we decided … to mobilize the troops to the maximum, and that the aircraft and ground troops be fully ready on June 1st, ” said civil security general inspector Francois Peny, speaking at an airbase in Nimes, in southwestern France.
“It’s one month earlier than in the past,” he said. “This is a very clear sign of climate change.”
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said earlier this month, amid France’s first major blaze this year at the border with Spain, that the country was headed for “an extremely difficult summer 2023, possibly as difficult as summer 2022.”
Some districts in southern France have already introduced water restrictions and the geological institute has said that low groundwater reserves could herald an even worse drought this summer.
Meanwhile, Spain is bracing for temperatures as high as 40C that are forecast to shatter records for April.
Spain’s national weather service said temperatures would “reach values typical of summer” across most of the country.
As people sweltered in a country experiencing a severe drought, Spanish media reported that the Health Ministry would consider implementing a heat prevention plan two weeks early to help regions respond to the effects of the unseasonably warm weather.
The State Meteorological Agency, which is known by the Spanish acronym AEMET, said temperatures were “exceptionally high” for April because of a mass of very warm and dry air coming from North Africa.
With a long weekend coming up, some people packed beaches along the coast. But residents who could not escape the heat in Spain’s inland capital, Madrid, were less lucky. Loli Gutierrez, 70, said she was worried about what conditions would be like when summer actually comes.
“This is already unbearable. We are only in April. If this happening in April, how is it going to be June?” she said.
Last year was Spain’s hottest since record-keeping started in 1961, and also the country’s sixth-driest despite the presence of weather phenomenon La Nina, which slightly dampened global average temperatures.
— Reporting by Lucien Libert; Writing by Ingrid Melander;Editing by Andrew Cawthorne. With files from The Associated Press.