The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said it has announced that it is verifying whether this week the record for temperatures in Europe was broken (48.8 degrees measured on the Italian island of Sicily), although it stressed that With the current trend, that brand will beat again and could soon exceed 50 degrees.
“We must be prepared so that in the future there will be new records (in Europe), around 50 degrees & rdquor ;, commented at a press conference the head of the Department of Applied Climate Services of the WMO, Bob Stefanski, reports Efe.
On Wednesday August 11 the Sicilian city of Syracuse reached 48.8 degrees, as measured by the regional meteorological service, a figure that if confirmed would exceed the continental maximum of 48 degrees recorded in Athens in 1977.
The WMO, which sometimes takes months to confirm these types of records, has also received notifications of national maximums in other Mediterranean countries (such as the more than 47 degrees recorded in Tunisia recently) that it is also verifying through its regional services, added Stefanski. .
The expert stressed that the heat wave is one of the factors that have aggravated forest fires in areas of the region such as Greece, Turkey or several countries in North Africa, and at the same time makes extinction work difficult.
In July, the WMO confirmed that the 18.3 degree temperature measured on February 5, 2020 at the Argentine Esperanza station was the highest taken to date in Antarctica.
The highest temperature in history recognized by the WMO is 56.7 degrees, measured on July 10, 1913 in Death Valley (California, USA).
Fires in Spain
The 14 large forest fires (greater than 500 hectares) registered in Spain until last August 8 place 2021 as the third year with the highest number of these incidents in the last decade, after 2012 in which 25 were registered and 2017 with 16 large fires, and above the annual average for this period, which was 10.
They are followed by the year 2015 in which, in the same period of time (January 1 to August 8), there were 12 major fires and 2019 with 11 of these incidents, according to the latest provisional data provided by the autonomous communities to the vice presidency third and the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (Miteco).
The years with the fewest number of large fires were 2018 with three and 2011 with five.
So far this year there have been 5,693 fires forestry (The annual average for the decade is 7,234), of which 2,074 were fires of more than one hectare and 3,619 outbreaks, which have burned some 44,574 hectares of forest area and, of these, 16,316 corresponded to wooded area; 24,069 hectares to scrub and open forest and 4,188 to herbaceous vegetation.
The figure of 44,574 hectares of forest burned so far this year is lower than the average for the same period in the last decade, which stands at 54,140 hectares, although higher than the 28,972 hectares in 2020 and lower than the 61,850 hectares destroyed by the flames in 2019.
As a percentage, the highest number of claims has occurred until August 8 in the Northwest area (Autonomous Communities of Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria and the provinces of León and Zamora) with 40.05% of the total; followed by the Interior communities (provinces of the rest of the non-coastal communities, except León and Zamora) with 38.28%; Mediterranean area (coastal autonomous communities with the Mediterranean Sea, including its interior provinces) with 21.20% and the Canary Islands with 0.47%.
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