The hot days let us feel the effects of climate change firsthand. If no countermeasures are taken, the warming threatens to increase further.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns again of the devastating effects of unchecked climate change. The extensive statistics of the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG). Accordingly, it has become around two degrees warmer in this country since the beginning of industrialization. If there is no trend reversal, warming will be at least five degrees by the year 2100.
60 to 80 days over 30 degrees
How much the two degrees already have an effect in Austria can be seen on the hot days with at least 30 degrees, according to the ZAMG. In the period from 1961 to 1990, for example, in most of the provincial capitals of Austria there were between five and eleven hot days per year and the record values were 20 days. In the period from 1991 to 2020, ZAMG recorded between 16 and 22 hot days and the records were already over 40.
“This could continue: The current extreme value of 40 hot days per year in Austria will be the norm at the end of the century with unchecked emissions of greenhouse gases worldwide,” said the Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics in a broadcast. The records would then “lie in a currently completely unimaginable range of 60 to 80 days over 30 degrees per year”.
Read here: Climate researchers predict up to 80 hot days per year
Especially in summer, the distribution of the daily rainfall has changed over the past few decades: the number of days on which there is little rain has become less frequent. On the other hand, days with a lot of precipitation have become ten to 30 percent more frequent in the past 30 years. “This leads to the apparently paradoxical fact that both the dry phases and the heavy rain events became more intense and frequent in summer,” said the ZAMG.
Health risks
The increasing heat also brings enormous health risks: “Heat is still underestimated as a danger because it is often difficult to prove that death, for example from cardiovascular failure, was caused by a heat wave. Numerous studies have shown that in Europe more people die from heat waves than from storms, floods or other extreme weather “, according to the ZAMG.
Read here: This is what the heat does to our body
The risk of droughts is increasing
Climate change also affects vegetation. In Austria, for example, there is no trend towards less precipitation, but the risk of droughts is still increasing. Because the constant warming has a strong effect on the water balance: the warmer it is, the more moisture evaporates from the soil into the air. In addition, a warmer climate extends the growing season and the plants take water from the soil over a longer period of time. Studies for the Alpine region also show that in the coming decades the fluctuations in the amount of precipitation could increase from year to year, which increases the risk of drought.
Effects on snowfall
Climate change also has an enormous impact on snowfall. According to the forecasts of the ZAMG, it will only remain cold enough for snowfall above around 1,500 to 2,000 meters in the coming decades. Instead, it will rain more and more often at low altitudes. In Austria, for example, the number of days with a blanket of snow in Vienna, Innsbruck and Graz has decreased by around 30 percent over the past 90 years. With unchecked emissions of greenhouse gases worldwide, the duration of snow cover will decrease by around 90 percent by the year 2100 in locations below about 400 meters above sea level and by a little more than 50 percent in locations around 1,500 meters.
“We will have to expect extreme weather”
“We are all already affected by the effects of the climate crisis. With storms occurring more and more frequently and intensively in Austria, in Europe and around the world, it is clear that we must act now – we need a committed climate protection policy,” said Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) fixed. The published data and results of the IPCC clearly show that going on as before is not an option for any of us. “All over the world, including Austria, we will increasingly have to reckon with extreme and storms, drought and heat in our regions and cities that we are now familiar with.”
Greenpeace calls for climate protection law
In this context, Greenpeace calls on the European Commission to finally initiate the necessary minimum measures at EU level and to quickly put together a “Fit for 65” package from the “Fit for 55” package. The 55 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is far too low, and at least 65 percent is imperative. Greenpeace is calling on the Austrian federal government to “implement a comprehensive and ambitious climate protection law and a socially cushioned eco-social tax reform as soon as possible”.
