2023-10-26 05:45:04
Place des Vosges, in Paris, October 8, 2023. DIMITAR DILKOFF / AFP
The parade of disruptions has taken hold in Europe for several days. The sign of the end of a very long summer. In 2023, a year of all extremes, the meteorological autumn will have started a little before the All Saints’ Day holidays. Before that, Madrid Airport recorded a maximum temperature of over 33°C on October 8. The city of Seville exceeded 30°C for five consecutive days during the same period. On October 13, it was around 30°C in Bordeaux, Toulouse and even Strasbourg.
September also saw a series of heat peaks with four hundred and forty records broken in France. “Meteorologically, there was a continuity from summer until October 15. It’s not surprising given scientific projections, but it’s always astonishing when it happens so quickly.”analyzes Serge Zaka, doctor in agroclimatology.
Enough to wonder about the upheaval in the rhythm of the weather seasons. Because this early autumn had all the characteristics of a 20th century summer. The national thermal indicator (the average temperature over thirty stations, day and night) between September 1 and October 10 was 20.46°C. Higher than the average of forty-seven summers between 1945 and 2000.
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Inspired by a debate on the Infoclimat.fr site, François Jobard, meteorologist at Météo-France, established the average temperatures for the seasons from 1961 to 1990 and compared them to the years 1991-2020.
In the recent period, we reach the average temperatures of meteorological summer (June 1-August 30) from 1961-1990 from May 15. The release takes place around September 13, instead of August 31. This season is therefore almost extended by a month. Winter is shortened by forty days, only occurring between Christmas and Valentine’s Day.
Early or late episodes
This shift is not characteristic of France. The Copernicus Institute indicated on October 5 that the month of September 2023 had been the hottest measured on the entire globe with an average temperature of 16.38 ° C, or approximately 1.75 ° C above September of the pre-industrial era. The previous record from September 2020 was beaten by 0.5°C, “an incredibly large margin”according to the independent organization Berkeley Earth.
Human-caused global warming is pushing up global averages around the world. Which logically causes conditions favorable to a « extension » of meteorological summer. “We must first understand that temperatures are higher in all seasons, summarizes Aurélien Ribes, climatologist at the National Meteorological Research Center. If we define summer in relation to a temperature threshold, it logically lasts longer. Without climate change, it would have been very difficult to reach temperatures in France of 42°C at the end of August, 35°C in September or 30°C in October. »
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