Last year was the sunniest and driest year on record since measurements began. The weather and climate institute KNMI reports in the report on Tuesday ‘The state of our climate’ that in the summer of 2022 the sun shone 17 percent more than normal, and 40 percent less rain fell. The summer and autumn in particular were exceptionally warm, with the highest temperature measured at 39.5 degrees.
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According to the KNMI, the sun shone more mainly due to a decrease in clouds, because high pressure areas occurred more often in spring and summer. This may be related to climate change, says Peter Siegmund, climate scientist at KNMI. Areas of high pressure develop between strong winds called jet streams. These streams are becoming more and more common, and the Netherlands is located exactly between two jet streams. The fact that they occur more often is because the poles warm up little in the summer and the area below them warms up a lot. The temperature difference between those two areas is increasing, and that may be due to climate change. “But it is an ongoing investigation,” said Siegmund.
More solar radiation can also occur due to less air pollution, because particles in the air reflect the sun. But according to Siegmund, this mainly explained the increase in solar radiation in the 1990s. “Since the beginning of this century, the air has been quite clean because air pollution has been tackled. Now the air hardly gets any cleaner.” Research shows that cleaner air not only leads to more solar radiation, but also to more global warming.
Future
The KNMI warns in the report that the Netherlands has become 2.3 degrees warmer since the beginning of the last century – about twice as much as the global warming of 1.2 degrees. If nothing changes, the earth will have warmed by 1.5 degrees by 2033, and the northern hemisphere by 2 degrees by 2037. It has been agreed in the Paris Climate Agreement that global warming should ideally not exceed 1.5 degrees, but in any case not exceed 2 degrees.
The KNMI also predicts more solar radiation for the coming years, although the institute expects that increase to be “significantly less” than the increase in 2022. “Last year that increase was more than the scenarios indicated,” says Siegmund. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this trend flattens out, for example due to more clouds.”