This 2022 has been by far the warmest year in Spain since at least 1916, more than a hundred years ago. The average temperature has exceeded 15 degrees for the first time and until 2011 it had never reached 14.5 degrees. This has been warned by the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET), a service that has illustrated the temperatures in the last 106 years with a graph.
As in much of Europe, Spain has suffered several intense heat waves in 2022 in a summer marked by a record number of forest fires with the worst year for Catalonia for a decade, an excess of mortality due to high temperatures quadrupling the figure of 2021 and a severe drought that limited activities in Catalonia due to the rising risk.
2022 has been the warmest year in Spain since at least 1916, with a difference compared to the immediate followers (2017 and 2020).
It is the first time that the average annual temperature exceeds 15 ºC. Until 2011, it had never reached 14.5 ºC. Since then, it has happened five times. pic.twitter.com/RNhQheKQAL— AEMET (@AEMET_Esp) January 2, 2023
Except for March and April, the months were “warmer than normal, especially in May, July and October, which were extremely hot,” the AEMET stated in a provisional balance for the year issued on December 21.
Drought, deaths and fires
It is also about third driest calendar year in the historical series, only surpassed by 2005 and 2017, they have assured in the note. And this meteorological episode has a direct impact on water reserves, which at the end of December they were at 43% capacitycompared to an average of 53% in the last ten years, according to the Ministry of Ecological Transition.
Related news
In addition, almost 4,744 deaths in Spain have been attributed to heat during the summer of 2022, according to excess mortality estimates from a public health institute.
Also, in 2022 the fires devastated more than 300,000 hectaresthe worst balance since measurements began in 2000, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).