Croatian Meteorological Service Reveals Data on Summer 2023

October the 7th, 2023 – With weird weather, violent storms and heatwaves, the Croatian Meteorological Service has revealed its data on what the situation has been in the country over this year’s summer period.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, summer 2023 here in Croatia was exceptionally warm, much like all summers in Croatia during the 21st century so far. Every single one has been hotter than the reference climate averages. Despite the intense heat we suffered this year, temperatures this summer actually never managed to reach record measurements, the meteorologists claimed.

2023 might just be the warmest year on record

The head of the Department of Climatology of the Croatian Meteorological Service, Melita Perčec Tadić, pointed out that this past summer was the warmest globally, the fifth warmest over the European mainland, while the summer in Croatia was warm, but record numbers weren’t reached. Nevertheless, Copernicus, the climate change service of the European Centre for Medium-Term Weather Forecasts, announced this week that 2023 could be the warmest year in the history of measurements.

Melita Perčec Tadić noted that Copernicus is referring to global temperatures, and global temperatures also include the temperatures taken over the sea. Given that the sea temperatures are currently at a record high, and that El Nino is still developing, she believe that these two reasons are why they gave this assessment, adding that “for this small piece of land” such an assessment cannot be given even at this point.

Analyses of air temperature trends conducted by the state body responsible show that summer is the season with the strongest air warming trend. The average daily air temperature during the summer here in Croatia increases by 0.3-0.6 °C per decade. In addition, the trends of changes in mean minimum and mean maximum air temperature are positive.

Zagreb as an urban heat island

Strong heat in the interior of Croatia has been particularly visible in the Zagreb area, which points to the strong influence of the urban heat island, she said. In the future, average annual air temperatures are expected to increase by 1.5-1.7 °C compared to the reference period, and we’ll also see an increase in air temperatures by season. A comparable increase can also be expected in the values of minimum and maximum air temperatures.

Climate changes are manifested in the occurrence of extreme weather events in the wider area of the Mediterranean. An increase in warm extremes and a degree of unreliability when it comes to the estimates of changes in extreme amounts of precipitation have been recorded. In addition, there have been more frequent occurrences of agronomic and ecological drought.

The aforementioned has been stated in the eighth national report of the Republic of Croatia according to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) from the beginning of 2023. The analysis of the climate in Croatia is based on daily data taken and recorded at 35 meteorological stations, as well as daily precipitation data from 143 stations of the Croatian Meteorological Institute.

Air temperature increases are expected across the Med – as well as in Croatia

According to the projections of current global climate models, an increase in air temperature is expected in the wider area of the Mediterranean and Croatia in all of the analysed scenarios. A decrease in the annual amount of precipitation of 10 percent and 20 percent in the Adriatic area is expected in scenarios that correspond to an increase in global temperature of 2 °C and 4 °C by the end of the 21st century.

Global climate change is a natural consequence of the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. The concentration of carbon dioxide back in 2019 was 410 ppm (part per million), which is the highest concentration in the last two million years. The concentration of methane was 1866 ppb, and for nitrogen oxide 332 ppb (parts per billion).

The increase in global air temperature in the period from 2011 to 2020 was estimated at 1.09 °C compared to the period from 1850 to 1900. On top of all of that, the mean level of the world’s oceans rose by a concerning 20 centimetres from 1901 to 2018.

 

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