(Madrid) Temperatures above 40 degrees suffocated the Iberian Peninsula again on Monday, where the thermometer will rise again in the coming days, less than a month after the last extreme heat wave.
The multiplication of heat waves is a direct consequence of global warming, explain the scientists, the emissions of greenhouse gases increasing at the same time the intensity, the duration and the frequency of these phenomena.
According to the Spanish meteorological agency (AEMET), the mercury should rise to 42 degrees in Extremadura (southwest) and up to 41 in Andalusia (south) on Monday. The maximum expected should also exceed 35 degrees in the northwest of the country, where it is generally much cooler.
This new heat wave, the second in a month, “seems quite exceptional”, said Monday Rubén del Campo, spokesperson for AEMET.
It started on Sunday and could “last nine or ten days, which would make it one of the three longest heat waves that Spain has experienced since 1975”, he explained to AFP.
“Climate change causes more frequent heat waves and makes them more intense,” continued Mr. del Campo, recalling that the number of these episodes has doubled in the last twelve years in the country.
According to Aemet, the most extreme temperatures will be recorded between Tuesday and Thursday. The agency is however unable to indicate whether the absolute temperature record recorded in Spain (47.4 degrees in Montoro, near Cordoba, in August 2021), could be beaten.
Including the current heat wave, Spain has gone through five episodes of exceptionally high temperatures over the past eleven months. Last May was notably the hottest month of May since the beginning of the century in the country.
In neighboring Portugal, the thermometer rose to 44 degrees in some areas over the weekend, favoring fires, the largest of which, in the town of Ourém (center), was contained on Monday.
If temperatures are expected to drop slightly across the country on Monday before jumping again on Tuesday and Wednesday, 42 degrees were still expected in the Evora region (southeast), according to the national weather agency.
In this context, the level of water reservoirs in Spain was on Monday at 45.3% of their total capacity, well below the average of the last ten years at this period (65.7%).
