Lanzarote has had a rainy 2018 with 78 rainy days and 142.7mm of precipitation, indicating the effects of climate change. Renewable energy could help alleviate these effects.

2015 is still the rainiest year of Lanzarote so far in the 21st century with 211.6 millimeters, but if rainy days are counted, 2018 takes the cake by registering 78 rainy days which yielded an accumulated precipitation of 142.7 millimeters. Last year ended with 49 days of rain and 130.2 millimeters of accumulated precipitation.

According to meteorological data recorded from 2000, the weather in Lanzarote continue as always, completely on your own, increasingly variable and unexpectedinterspersing rainy years with other dry ones, and measured temperatures that oscillate between 20 and 22 degrees Celsius (ºC). Everything indicates that climate change is already here and that their presence will be more and more noticeable, unless humanity acts as a single organism.

CLIMATE CHANGE, THE GREATEST THREAT

Climate change is the biggest threat hanging over civilization. Science predicts that its consequences could be devastating, unless we drastically reduce dependence on fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions. The progressive melting of the glacial masses causes a rise in sea level, which could be terrible for coastal cities and islands.

In the worst probable scenarios, the temperature increase could reach 4.8ºC by the end of the century. For this reason, the longer we take to act, the much higher will be the investments for adaptation to the increase in temperature. The solution involves an energy reconversionsince with renewable energies it will be possible to alleviate the effects of climate change. Lanzarote and the Canary Islands have abundant hours of sun, wind and the force of the sea and waves to achieve energy self-sufficiency from clean and renewable energy, but it must move much faster.

YEARS WITHOUT RAIN AND OTHERS OF ABUNDANCE

Lanzarote does not have significant altitudes above sea level, so it is not possible to take advantage of the constant blowing of the trade winds, nor do clouds form when colliding with mountain systems, as happens on other islands of the Archipelago. Therefore, the discharge of moisture contained in the sea of ​​clouds carried by the trade winds does not occur.

On the other hand, its proximity to the African continent and the lack of rainfall place us among the semi-desert regions of the planet. An added problem is that, when they do occur, they are usually irregular and torrential, with years without rain followed by others of abundance, but it falls in a very short time, causing the water to run down the ravines until it is lost in the sea.

Rainfall is measured in mm, and is equivalent to the thickness of the sheet of water that would form on a flat and impervious surface due to precipitation. The resulting amount, measured in liters of water per square meter of land, is what favors life to a greater or lesser extent.