I can totally confirm that the dramatic climate changes you're seeing in your city are happening here in Europe too. In fact, climate change is probably happening even faster here than in North America — and in the Mediterranean region, it's maybe even more obvious.
Over the past five years, we've seen a clear drop in winter cold spells with snowfall in the mountains. Here in Sicily, snow used to fall above 1000 meters on the northern coastal ranges during at least three events each winter. But since 2020, it's pretty much vanished. Winters have become way milder than before.
In the past, during the strongest cold snaps in Palermo, we usually got two or three gray events (that fake snow Sicilians from the lowlands like to call “snow”). But that kind of stuff hasn't been seen in six years. And the mountains surrounding Palermo — which rise up to 1333 meters — barely see any real snow now, and when it does fall, it's only on the very highest peaks, for a very short time, and in tiny amounts.
This is just making Sicily's already tough summer droughts even worse, because we don't get that solid snowpack in the cold months that used to melt and feed the creeks, streams, and lakes come spring.
On top of all that, extreme heat waves are now way more common. In the past, temperatures above 40°C in Palermo happened maybe once or twice per decade. But in the last ten years or so, it's become more common for us to have years where we hit that 40°C mark.
Sicily already has a naturally warm and nearly snowless climate, but global warming is pushing it into an even more difficult situation. Honestly, I don't even want to think about what the climate will be like here in 20 years. You Canadians are kinda lucky in a way — your climate is usually cold, rainy, and snowy, so man-made global warming won't turn your land into a tropical desert like it might do to ours. At least that won’t happen this century.....
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Originally Posted by MonctonRad
Very interesting to see the change in sea surface temperatures off the east coast. I would say this is what is driving the increased temperatures in the Maritimes, which seems mostly coastal.
I can certainly attest to the fact that winters are now generally milder with more rain and less snow than 50 years ago, with even snowy Moncton now not getting staying snow on the ground until early January. We have not had a decent blizzard in Moncton for the last two years.
Don't get me wrong, we still get lots of snow, it's just that the severity and intensity of winter is now a lot less than in the 1970s. Back then (before the Confederation Bridge), there would be so much ice build-up in the northumberland Strait, with pressure ridging, that the ice breaking ferries could get stuck and require rescue from the Coast Guard. Now the strait is never choked with ice - just some floating pan ice.
Summer heat waves are more intense too, and, we seem to jave droughts every summer, especially in August. The drought this year came early.
Increasing ocean temperatures can be bad for the lobster fishery. Lobsters like cold water. Yields have been decreasing in New England for some time now. Lobster is still plentiful on the Canadian east coast, but, it does make you worry about the future. |
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