Environment & Energy
Related: About this forum74% Of Spain At Risk Of Desertification; Madrid Essentially Becomes Marrakesh By 2050
If carbon emissions remain unabated, Madrid will have a climate more like present-day Marrakesh by 2050, according to a recently published study by Swiss researchers. The study by ETH Zurich and Crowther Lab suggests that if the world doesnt band together within the next 11 years the point of no return to reduce CO2 emissions, the earth could be 2-2.5 degrees hotter within a matter of a few decades. In that scenario, Madrids weather is likely to increase by an average of 2.1° Celsius, with the hottest temperatures increasing by 6.4°C.
Already this year, Madrileños have perspired their way through record-breaking heat, with June 28 registering the hottest maximum temperature on record for the month of June 40.7C (105 Fahrenheit), according to Spains national meteorological service.
Experts from the European Environment Agency (EEA) told Anadolu Agency that the most extreme climate scenarios also project precipitation decreasing by more than 40% in parts of Spain during the summer months by the end of the century, leading to longer and more severe droughts across the Iberian Peninsula. And with at least 74% of Spain at risk of desertification (18% at high or very high risk), according to official data from 2008, could some parts of Spain come to look more like the Moroccan Sahara within our lifetimes?
The process of desertification will never produce a desert. Desertification creates something much worse than that a landscape formed by opportunistic ecosystems and land degradation, explained Gabriel del Barrio, a researcher at the Experimental Station for Arid Zones (EEZA) in Almeria, Spain. Deserts are formed over thousands of years by mature ecosystems and contain abundant biodiversity.
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https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/soil-to-sand-spain-s-growing-threat-of-desertification/1535951
Bayard
(22,073 posts)The heat wave this week is just a taste.
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)by water flowing from the nearby Atlas mountains, it is a great oasis, a beautiful sight as you fly in by air from the Canary Islands. Madrid has no such resources. The noble city of Granada, below the Sierra Nevada, would be closest in comparison.
The Iberian Peninsula, fine land, already edgy, climate-wise, is definitely increasingly water-stressed.
Franco built reservoirs...