Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Europe Warned About Warming
Lets be typically British and talk about the weather, shall we? Well, since I am British, I reckon I have a valid excuse. What's yours?
Generally known as the land of the "Eternal Spring", with a pretty constant year-round temperature and nothing much to any extreme, Tenerife has also often been called a "continent in miniature" because of the diversity of its flora, fauna and micro-climates in different parts of the island. But you used to know exactly what you would get in each area and what slight variations to expect at different times of year.
Climate-wise, things have certainly changed here over the last few years and are set to change quite a lot more, according to this report by Wired Europe Warned About Warming.
When I first came to the island in 1992, the heat was always bearable and accompanied by sea breezes. Humidity was unnoticeable and rain consisted of two days worth in winter.
When you got up in the morning, if you saw sun, you knew you'd have sun all day. Now, the weather can change hourly. This bemuses the locals, annoys the tourists and worries the heck out of me with Deja Vu recollections of England.
We've had some very bad storms since the turn of the century. There was a tornado in Feb/Mar 2001 (I managed not to be on the island, but came back to find a lot of damages and saw whole fields laid bear where crops had literally been ripped out by the winds) and more bad storms in the December of that year, which required putting the island on a state of alert.
(The storm on December 9 that year lifted the roof on the front of my house and brought down the ceiling with countless gallons of water.)
On March 31, 2002, a disaster occurred in the capital, Santa Cruz and a state of emergency was declared after torrential rains - 224 liters per square meter in bearly three hours, or in other words, all the water we would normally expect over a whole year in less than an afternoon - caused serious flooding and six deaths.
The Wired article states, "Across Europe, however, buildings are made to stay warm in winter, not cool in summer, and even modern buildings are not designed to cope with very hot weather."
Up to a point, older, more traditional houses in the Canary Islands, with thick walls and small windows with shutters, are already better prepared for hot weather. This summer though, it was nothing short of an "arms race" to see what kind of inventive methods we could come up with to keep sun and heat out of our homes.
These last two summers have been unbearably hot. I thought it was me becoming "menopausal" and being unable to take the heat any more, but even locals have commented that they have never experienced anything like it in their lives.
At the end of July this year, the extreme heatwave claimed 17 lives in the Canary Islands and in August the islands were put on a state of alert over 40 degree temperatures.
They certainly well surpassed that here.
August is a month when you "know" it is just going to be sunny and hot and can plan accordingly. Companies and government departments simply close down for the entire month. Not so in August 2002 when my neighbours were trying to paint the outside of the house and it rained every day. (Yeah, I though too that now they know how the British live!)
Wired mentions an increase in tick-borne diseases. I've already had one cat running a fever of 104 degrees as a result of a tick infestation - despite preventative treatments and regular inspections. I have also noticed that the "tick season" is getting longer too. This may seem like a small thing, but prevention and treatments cost money and my expenditure has already doubled in the last three years.
With more storms, high winds and heavier winter rains, it is becoming clear that even here, the houses that were adequate for the climate several years ago, are no longer prepared for it.
It seems to me that if such small changes in temperature can cause such large changes in daily life already, it is hard to see how one can adapt.
Of course, the Canary Islands are only loosely, politically, affiliated to Europe. Geographically, they are Africa, of course. Neither is of that much importance when this has clearly been shown to be a world-wide phenomenon.
Climate change is a far greater threat to the world than international terrorism
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