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Tourists take a dip at La Malagueta beach in a picture taken this December. Salvador Salas
Malaga is warming up more than other areas: 2.5 degrees on average in the last 50 years
Climate change

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

A University of Malaga climate study shows that the Costa del Sol is experiencing increasingly longer summers, which now extend from May to October

Ignacio Lillo

Málaga

Monday, 13 January 2025, 15:33

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".

Longer summer

"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."

"You have to look at the average temperatures, month by month and year by year, and not at one-off peaks"

José Luis Escudero, a self-taught specialist on Malaga meteorology and writer of the blog Tormentas y Rayos (in SUR.es), has been in charge of compiling the official Aemet data at the airport. He has done so, he says, as a way of finding out the real warming that is taking place in Malaga. "It's not that I used to be a denier, but there have always been high temperatures and climate changes."

Escudero goes on to say: "Over the last 50 years it is clear that the average temperature has risen a lot." Moreover, this trend has been verified in three variables: absolute mean, mean maximum and minimum.

"Many will now make excuses, such as that the data is taken at the airport (which is the thermometer that Aemet takes as a reference for statistical purposes) and now there are more planes," he explains.

"It is true that at other times the temperature at a given moment could have been higher, but what we have to look at are the averages, month by month and year by year, not the occasional peaks."

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."

More pronounced trend

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."

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