Heat Waves in Europe

Summer in Porto has so far panned out pretty much exactly as I predicted in June. We've had a few unusually hot days, but for the most part, we've had cooler than normal weather, with clouds and the occasional drizzle. This follows a pattern that's been developing over the sixteen years that I've lived in this town. Summers are becoming increasingly unstable. Blue skies and stable temperatures in the mid to high 20C range are no longer a given.

However, the focus in the media is always on the hot days, and never on the fact that the weather is mostly cooler than normal. There's also a lot of talk about forest fires and droughts, even though this is mostly due to bad resource management. There are also perverse incentives in the system that make forest fires profitable for big land owners, because burned forests fetch insurance money from the state, even if the wood is still usable.

Eucalyptus trees, which have been imported to Portugal by big forest owners have the quality that they shed a lot of bark that burns easily. The trees drain water from the soil, and they are mostly unscathed by fire. Such trees thrive in an environment of frequent fires, and the land owners love them because they provide a double income. Every fire results in money from the state, so there's no incentive to prevent fires.

There's also something strange going on in Norway. A friend of mine posted pictures on Facebook of water reservoirs overflowing with water. Yet, pictures from newspapers show reservoirs drained to dangerously low levels. It appears that there's some serious mismanagement going on due to incompetence or malice.

The much talked about heat wave in England lasted no more than two days, and temperatures in Portugal were in the low 20s during this time. Temperatures in Bergen, Norway were as low as 13C. No-one seemed to have noticed that the hot air in England was a bubble squeezed in between two relatively cold weather systems.

It appears that instability, rather than heat, is the keyword that best describes this summer. That's more in line with the type of weather we've had during cold periods such as the Dark Ages than what we've had during warm periods.

Sun

By DracoLumina17 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link