The heat wave that you currently feel Mexicopractically since the beginning of June, will continue in the next 10 to 15 daysScientists and researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) reported this Wednesday.
In a press conference, a group of experts pointed out that extreme temperature events have been increasing in Mexico, and heat waves are an example.
The one that is currently lived in the Mexican territory will last 15 days (more) and, as of July 1, another one could be registered”, informed the scientists of the Institute of Sciences of the Atmosphere and Climate Change of the UNAM.
In her turn, Graciela Binimelis, from the Micro and Mesoscale Interaction Group, explained that heat waves, defined according to the study by Ernesto Jauregui in 2009, “are periods of three or more days, with a temperature greater than 30 degrees and an average temperature greater than 24 degrees Celsiusin the case of Mexico City”.
Based on said study that analyzed these phenomena in the capital of the country, from 1880 to 2005, “the months with the highest number of heat waves are April and May, followed by March and June with the lowest incidence,” he said.
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In most cases they last from three to six days, he pointed out, and “those of more than 10 days have only been recorded five times in that period.”
The expert pointed out that “its frequency per decade has increased systematically”. In addition, their intensity increases due to factors such as low soil moisture. “Let’s note that a large part of the Mexican territory registers severe and extreme drought,” he explained.
Health implications
The impacts of the phenomenon are reflected in human health, “because dehydration and heat strokes can occur that can be fatal, especially in infants and older adults. They are also observed in agriculture, due to damage to recently germinated crops, in addition to widespread forest fires, “atypical for the climate that we have evaluated.”
Binimelis explained that in some studies it has been observed that long-duration waves occur after the events known as “El Niño” occur, so it is “possible that a Niño could develop during this year, so forecasts would have to be taken for the heat waves that could arise in the spring of next year”.
For his part, Víctor Manuel Torres, a specialist in tropical meteorology, specified that one factor that leads to heat waves is the presence of the so-called “non-convective phase of the Madden-Julian oscillation.”
Which is a “tropical wave that propagates to the east and that is born in the Indian Ocean”.
He said that it has a period of 30 to 60 days and a displacement of 14 to 29 kilometers per hour “it is very large and is characterized by having areas of increased and suppressed precipitation, and when it is decreased it prevents the development of clouds and precipitation.”
He explained that meteorological models suggest the formation of two tropical cyclones in the western Caribbean that would affect the Mexican southeast.
Starting in July, a new heat wave of similar magnitude could be expected,” but, he said, “this is a guarded forecast. It is risky to affirm what could happen, but it is necessary to take forecasts”.
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