The extension of the summer season and the contraction of the intermediate seasons, i.e. Autumn and Spring, has been observed in recent years mainly due to climate change but also overall global warming. As the professor of Climatology of the National Kapodistrian University of Athens and president of the Hellenic Meteorological Society, Panagiotis Nastos, explains to the Athenian-Macedonian News Agency, “the feeling is that the 4 seasons are now beginning and shrinking and decreasing, becoming two”. “An extension of the summer period into autumn is observed. The winter mainly due to climate change shows increased temperatures and especially the winter of 2023. Essentially summer stretches into autumn’ Mr. Nastos underlines in APE-MPE.

According to the European Copernicus Observatory for the final climate assessment of 2023, 2023 was the warmest year on record (1850-present). The global average temperature was 1.48°C above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900) and surpassed the second warmest 2016 by 0.17°C. Every month from June to December 2023 was warmer than the corresponding months in all previous years.

According to Mr Nasto 2023 was the warmest year however may in 2024 surprise us even more. “There is a major climate anomaly on a global scale. Climate change contributes to this, but there is a high possibility that the El Niño phenomenon will also affect and influence this winter by increasing the global temperature”, he emphasizes and adds that milder winters and warmer summers are expected. “This is part of the pattern we’re going to live in and eventually we’re going to lose the interseasons and have a long summer that goes all the way into winter,” he explains.

With reference to Greece, as pointed out by the research on the El Niño phenomenon, it has shown that it affects the country in terms of reducing the intensity and frequency of the annual winds and monsoons. “This means less cooling in the Aegean, a greater sense of heat stress and more pollution in Athens. It is one of the effects that El Niño may bring us”, he notes.

Konstantinos Lagouvardos: Significant upward deviations in the months of October, November, December and January

High temperatures have been recorded for at least two years in the months of October, November, December and January, according to the director of research at the Institute for Research on Environment and Sustainable Development, at the National Observatory of Athens, Costa Lagouvardo.

As Mr. Lagouvardos explains to APE-MPE, it is too early to say that the seasons are changing because this means that such a situation should have been established, however, what is being observed is that more and more often deviations are observed in rainfall and temperatures in months which is a bit strange to happen.

“December 2022 and 2023 were, for example, very hot months in all regions of the country. We also saw this in December 2022 and it continued in January 2023 with very high temperatures. And now we come to this year’s December, December 2023 which had very significant upward deviations as this year’s January has so far despite the drop in temperature in the following days. We also see that some other spring and summer months such as May and June 2023 were cold months. Quite cold. In other words, we saw a shift of the cold towards the end of the winter as well as several rains. I would say more that we start and see some deviations in some months. For example December 2022, January 2023, November and December 2023, these were up and yet we also had months like May and June with a lot of rain in the country and with much lower than normal temperatures. In fact, we see this happening in some unexpected periods, which has consequences for agricultural production. The heat of the winter that passed us and the low temperatures and rains in the Spring of 2023 had significant effects on agricultural production as did the very high temperatures we have this time, in October, November, December and January. Therefore we start and see more and more frequent changes and the most frequent is to have temperatures well above the normal ones”, underlines Mr. Lagouvardos to APE-MPE.

Although the results of the 2023 climate assessment for Greece are awaited, Mr. Lagouvardos emphasizes that 5 months saw temperatures well above normal levels, specifically the months of January, July, October, November and December. “August was near normal levels, May and June were cold months, cold months. July had very high temperatures but for me the most worrying thing was what happened in December, because in July we had the prolonged heatwave, we saw in areas that temperatures were 2 degrees above normal but December had extremely high temperatures. What we are always interested in are deviations from normal values. And December was really quite impressive as was January 2023. January, October, November and December 2023 were extremely warm months. The biggest deviations were in these months. January, October and December”, Mr. Lagouvardos points out to APE-MBE.

At the same time, according to Mr. Lagouvardos and this January, 2024 that is, are also observed, very high for the level temperatures, mainly in Northern Greece. “At the beginning of January, for example, we had deviations of up to 12 points in Florina. In between we have the cold invasions but now the days are few. Especially Northern Greece at the maximum prices at least has a significant upward deviation”, he explains.

In the last few days for example in the country, before the cold invasion that is expected at the weekend, yesterday’s temperatures (that is last Wednesday) were very high especially for the north of the country. There were areas like Florina which had 8 degrees above its normal levels or Kozani. THE Central Greece 4-5 degrees above normal. There are significant discrepancies mainly in regions of Northern Greece. These are very significant differences.

In fact, according to data from the meteo.gr network of 52 meteorological stations of the National Observatory of Athens (EAA) that have been operating continuously since 2010 until today, in December 2023 the average value of the maximum daily temperatures fluctuated at extremely high levels almost throughout the country, compared to the average of the period 2010-2019.

“This follows a more general trend of climate change, which is to have warmer temperatures more of the time. However, within the scheme of climate change, i.e. the increase in temperatures, there are also some periods that are affected by the natural variability of the weather. Therefore, not all months are the same, there are also months that have a more unusual behavior, up or down. What is now worrisome is that it now happens quite often with the majority of cases being upwards”, notes Mr. Lagouvardos to APE-MPE.

Regarding the El Niño phenomenon Mr. Lagouvardos points out that this contributes to the increase in the average temperature of the planet, which is why until now the hottest years on a planetary level was 2016. “This phenomenon contributes to the rise in temperature that we have had globally in the last months because it affects a part of the planet near the Pacific, raising the prices there quite a bit, so the global average goes up, but in Greece it is affected less, much less. No relationship found. But the illusion should not be created that because we are going to high temperatures in general, there will be no cold invasions, that there will be no cold. Cold air masses will always be present at the poles and these cold air masses presumably because of climate change have a tendency to descend further south more easily and make strong cold incursions, however they are starting to become less so. Climate change does not mean that the cold invasions will disappear or the snows in the northern latitudes will disappear. They will continue to exist but it is likely to be a pattern as we have seen happen in our country in recent years with short cold episodes and the rest of the time we will have temperatures that systematically deviate from normal temperatures”.