Date Published: 30/01/2020
ARCHIVED - The climate emergency could make the weather of Murcia wetter in the long term
ARCHIVED ARTICLE 
Another meteorologist forecasts more frequent and intense storms in the Costa Cálida
In recent years there has been a Good deal of concern over the possibility that the Region of Murcia and other parts of south-eastern Spain could become a desert area due to global warming, but at least one meteorologist is of the opinion that the “climate emergency” recognized last week by the Spanish government could actually result in the climate of the Costa Cálida becoming wetter.
Juan David Pérez Correas, who collaborates with the State meteorological agency Aemet in Cehegín in the north-west of Murcia, is quoted in regional newspaper La Verdad on Thursday as saying that the increased frequency and intensity of the storms which have affected the Region in the last five years is a logical result of some of the aspects of the changing climate. As the North Pole and the Arctic become warmer bodies of cold air drift further south more easily than was the case in the past, and when they meet with the ever-warmer water of the Mediterranean all of the ingredients for heavy rain are thrown together.
This coincides largely with the analysis offered last week by Juan Andrés García Valero, the Aemet spokesman in Murcia, who explains that as the atmosphere of the planet warms its capacity to retain water vapour is increasing, and for this reason there is more moisture released when the conditions are right for rain. By the same logic, Sr García Valero hypothesizes that if the body of cold air which arrived from the north ten days ago had reached Murcia in September, the rain could have been even more intense than the torrential downpours which left Los Alcázares and other towns on the shore of the Mar Menor flooded.
Sr Pérez Correas points out that this is just one side of a trend towards more extreme weather events, and that more episodes of heavy and intense rain would not mean Murcia being transformed into an area of green fields like those of Galicia in north-western Spain.
In the shorter term, meanwhile, he corroborates the view that over the next couple of days and weeks warm temperatures are in store, although it is not too late for wintry conditions to return before the spring and summer arrive.
Image: flooding caused by the gota fría storm of September 2019
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