Punctuated by climatic extremes, 2022 is a “symptom” of climate change, indicates Météo-France. Exceptional in the current climate, it could become “normal” in 2050.
by Audrey Garric
Until the last day, the whole range of superlatives will have been summoned to try to qualify an “extraordinary” and above all “dramatic” year on the climate level. Météo-France confirms it, Friday January 6 : 2022 ranks the hottest year ever recorded in France since the start of the statements, in 1900. The twelve months, ending with a night of The Holy Sylvestre at record temperatures were punctuated by multiple disasters – heat waves, fires, droughts, floods. An exceptional situation which will become the standard around 2050 under the effect of the climate crisis, if the greenhouse gas emissions are not greatly reduced.
The temperature has reached 14.5 ° C on a national scale over the whole year, 0.4 ° C more than the previous record of 2020. “It’s huge. Usually. , when we break a record, it’s just. This time, it’s as if we had climbed four steps at once, “explains Christine Berne, climatologist at Météo-France.
months after month, the heat has hardly offered respite and no part of the territory has been spared. The country has suffocated under three heat waves – an exceptional duration of thirty -three days of heat wave – during the summer, the second warmer behind 2003. Many temperature records were sprayed, mainly on the west facade, Where many cities have exceeded 40 ° C, including in Brittany. The temperature anomalies recorded between May and August would have been almost impossible without climate change, which have made them approximately 500 times more likely but much more intense.
negative consequences for fauna and flora
The year, which has more than ever scrambled the seasons, also recorded three other episodes of extremely early or late heat, in May, at the end of October and the end of December. Fall ranks like the hottest ever recorded, as is the end of the year. On December 31, temperatures exceeded the normal season on average on the territory by 8 ° C, flirting with summer time. Pointes at 24 ° C at Dax or 23 ° C in Biscarosse were for example recorded.
This episode, as well as that of October, was caused by a very hot air mass from the Sahara, driven by a depression stationed above the Atlantic Ocean. A classic configuration but aggravated by the climatic disruption which still warms this already burning air. This phenomenon, which has panicked the mercury on a large part of Europe, will continue until the middle of the month.
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