WORLD WORLDWIDE SICILIA news journal UPDATE - (en) Sicilia Libertaria 2-24: Alerci special - SICILY: HEAT AND DESERTIFICATION (ca, de, it, pt, tr) [machine translation]

 

If it is true that the environmental issue seems to be at the center of
public debate, in reality it seems that every day the problem confuses
public opinions more and more. In the positions of politicians and
decision-makers we move from irrationalism, to denialism, to,
conversely, blind catastrophism: even those who still try to follow the
evolution of this debate have no real perception of what is about to
happen. ---- We all know that, for at least four decades, the climate
has been in a vortex of unstoppable changes. Those who still remember
remember that already in the 1980s, studies on the effects of greenhouse
gases had left the rooms of the academy and began to be part of the
public debate. We talked about it at school, during science lessons. It
was talked about every now and then on the news. And the first
predictions began to circulate about what we should expect in the more
or less immediate future. For the entire southern Mediterranean area,
there was immediate talk of a progressive reduction in rainfall up to a
frightening percentage of 30%: an environment that was already in a very
precarious state of equilibrium, with dry summers, a place close to very
few hundreds of kilometers to the largest desert on the planet, this
already unhappy land would undergo an almost apocalyptic change.

Forty years after those predictions, we have arrived at the point.
Despite a certain delay compared to the times indicated for the foreseen
scenarios, probably linked to the inertia of the climatic systems of the
mare nostrum. If, in fact, in the northern regions the climate change
has been devastating for twenty years already, with the Alpine glaciers
in very rapid retreat (some have lost half their volume) mainly due to
unprecedented summer temperatures for those latitudes, in the south up
until the ten of the year 2000, we had had a relative respite: just
enough rainy winters, even heavy snow like we hadn't seen for a long
time (just think of the Arctic waves of 2015, 2017, 2019). But it was a
temporary effect which among other things made us understand, if it were
still necessary, the difference between meteorological events and
climate cycles: if for one, two, three years, but even ten, it rains
more or snows more ( or less) nothing matters compared to longer-term
averages, specifically thirty-year climatology.

And then it turns out that those scientists, who forty or more years ago
spoke to us about the greenhouse effect, were right, indeed: if we take
the climate annals of the stations in internal Sicily as a reference we
can record an increase of three degrees in the average, minimum values
and maximums. That's right, three degrees, because an increase of just
one degree in the average global temperature can mean an increase of
even five degrees or more in the average temperatures of individual
areas. So it's still going well, but unfortunately we have time to see
worse. In fact, 2021 seems to have all the characteristics to mark a new
leap forward in the Mediterranean climate crisis: from 2021 until the
last summer of 2023, we are witnessing the definitive affirmation of the
new Mediterranean climate. First of all, the new European heat record
was established in Sicily, the 48.8 degrees of 11 July 2021 in the
Syracuse area. But ultimately these peaks have always been there. What
is changing the nature of our climate is instead the phenomenon of
persistence. One of the most studied effects of climate change is in
fact related to the slowdown of currents, both atmospheric and marine,
with the consequent establishment of the same meteorological
configurations for weeks and even months in the same areas. In
particular, the European summer is now prey to a new type of
anticyclone, with a strong Saharan origin, triggered by the descent into
the nearby Atlantic of those cold influxes which in the past flowed
quickly at high latitudes and which now sink slowly, calling us, day
after day, increasingly warmer air. Well, precisely since that terrible
summer of 2021, the phenomena just described trigger values at altitude
(measured by specific aerial surveys in the free atmosphere, at an
altitude of approximately 1500 meters above sea level) of 28-30 degrees
compared to 25 in the worst hot waves before warming, and, above all, a
persistence that if in the past was 3-7 days now reaches 12-17 days.
With what effects? We have seen it: daytime temperatures of 38 degrees
at 1000 meters above sea level for weeks, uninterruptedly, and values
above 44-45 degrees in the valley bottoms (it should be noted that these
heat waves, due to the phenomenon of compression of the air masses
linked to very high pressure values cause proportionately higher values
on the mountains than on the coasts).

The summers of 2022 and 2023 were no different, after all. Last summer,
for example, despite there being no new absolute records, was
characterized by the longest hot wave ever recorded since the existence
of a modern network of weather stations in Sicily, lasting 18 days.
During these episodes, trees lost up to half of their leaves even though
they were very resistant to drought, not to mention the suffering of the
high altitude beech forests.

Faced with this scenario, even abundant rainfall, even abundant snow
which is still not lacking, can do little to guarantee the survival of
ecosystems. In fact, summer is the season that decides the long-term
climate trend, not winter; even cold and rainy autumns and winters
cannot guarantee ecosystems in the presence of summers that last until
November and with daytime values that have gone from thirty to forty
degrees in a short time. Imagine if, at the same time, rain and snow
decrease, as is happening for example this year and as will continue to
happen. Yet we knew it, they told us, and they said it based precisely
on the study of the greenhouse effect, demonstrating that the warming is
of an anthropic nature, because it is manifesting itself in the ways
predicted by simulations on the anthropic alteration of the gases
present in the atmosphere , not of who knows what other natural
variables (which may exist).

We must then remember our duties, Vittorini would say. On the one hand
it is essential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions immediately, with
inevitable sacrifices and costs, which however should not always burden
only the weak links in the value chains. We must do it first and
certainly not take as an alibi the behavior of the so-called big
polluters such as China and India, who in fact are not easy to ask not
to do what we have always done for centuries. And on the other hand we
must think about surviving, preparing actions to mitigate the effects of
these changes which, even if we utopistically stopped putting gases into
the atmosphere tonight, will now be triggered for decades or centuries.
Global warming is already revolutionizing our lives, the products of
Mediterranean agriculture are less and less abundant, the olive tree, a
symbolic plant of our culture, produces less and less. We must not
change by thinking about 2050 or 2100, but simply about last August,
when the energy distribution networks were liquefying in Sicilian cities.

Always remembering that we live a few hundred kilometers from the
largest desert in the world.

Luca Alerci

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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