Malaga is warming up more than other areas: 2.5 degrees on average in the last 50 years

The thermometer at Malaga airport, which is one of the main references used by Spain's national meteorological agency, Aemet, is an impassive witness to climate change. The evolution of average temperatures, according to Aemet, leaves no room for doubt that the Costa del Sol is getting hotter and hotter, even in months when it should not be.

The Aemet official database, compiled and developed by José Luis Escudero, a local meteorology expert, provides the maximum, minimum and average values for the last 50 years (from 1974 to 2024), measured at this point.

On this basis, professor of climate change at the University of Malaga (UMA), Enrique Salvo, has analysed the evolution and the conclusions are clear: "It is clear that the average annual temperature in the case of Malaga has risen from 15.7 degrees half a century ago to 18.25 today," he says, adding: "We are talking about a 2.5 degree increase in temperatures, that is, one degree above the global warming of the planet."

Why? In the case of the city of Malaga, which is where this evolution has been measured, the main hypothesis put forward by Salvo is that it is fundamentally due to the warming of the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Malaga, "which acts as a thermoregulator and does not cool sufficiently, which can be seen above all in the (nocturnal) minimum temperatures".

"Although the (daytime) highs are also of concern, because there too we are seeing a rise that is above the global average, around 2.5 degrees of warming," he adds.

It also shows month by month and by season how thermometers have evolved over the years. In this case, two interesting conclusions emerge. Firstly, it can be seen that summer has a central part that lasts four months, from June to September, whereas in 1974 there were three. "Of these, two months a year, July and August, are already very hot to torrid."

But the most remarkable thing to note here is that both May and October are beginning to have "a summery feel in terms of temperatures". In both cases, maximum temperatures are rising considerably.

These intermediate seasons, April and May on the one hand, and October and November on the other, also feel more summery. "So we are left with practically no spring and no autumn, and we move abruptly into a colder period with a winter that lasts from mid-December to mid-February."

When is the incidence of climate change most intensely observed in Malaga's climate? This is another of the study's focal points. "What we see from this graph and the behaviour of the general averages is that there is a warming prior to 1998-1999, which corresponds to the highest incidence of the urban heat island," i.e. the city's own activity that generates a progressive increase in temperatures until that year.

Since then, temperatures have continued to rise, due to a combination of the urban heat island itself, the impact of climate change, the strong population growth that has taken place over the last 25 years, and the number of motorised journeys.

The conclusions are clearly pessimistic. "All of this places us in a situation where the climate in summer is going from very hot to torrid, and this is going to have a very strong impact due to the impact of heat waves, which are increasingly more continuous and longer in duration." In this context, warns Enrique Salvo, the 1,300 deaths that occurred last year due to the impact of the temperature are understandable.

The main mitigation therapy for these rising temperatures, especially in urban areas, is to plant trees and create green spaces. But even this simple solution is now threatened by the same problem: "Many species are not surviving because of excessive warming of the soil, because the important part of the tree is in the roots. This is what is happening with pine trees, which are dying, and there are other species that will not be able to live in the cities."