climate change

A study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters estimates that babies born in Spain in 2025 will experience 7.3 more years of extreme weather conditions conducive to wildfires. The exposure for their grandparents, born in 1950, will be half that figure: 3.7 additional years. According to the authors, the vast majority of this increase is due to climate change rather than rising life expectancy. Limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, in line with the Paris Agreement, would reduce Spanish young people’s lifetime exposure to these conditions by more than a year, compared with current policies.

According to a report published by the World Meteorological Organisation, 2025 has been one of the driest years in more than three decades for rivers worldwide. Global water reserves have been declining for more than 10 years, and this is the fourth consecutive year in which glacier losses have been recorded across all regions. Although rainfall in the Iberian Peninsula was above normal in the summer, the west and north-west of Spain experienced a reduction in rainfall of up to 75 per cent below average.
  

A combination of geological and climatic factors — the latter influenced by anthropogenic climate change — lay behind the catastrophic rock and ice avalanche last August on Nepal’s northern border, according to a review carried out by World Weather Attribution and glaciology experts. The team carried out an attribution analysis to examine the role of climate change in the rise in temperatures in July and August preceding the collapse, as well as in the region’s rainfall. According to the study, human-induced warming has raised the freezing line by around 100 metres per decade, leading to the thinning of glaciers and the thawing of the permafrost that held the mountain together. These factors, together with the destabilisation caused by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in 2015, are believed to be the main causes of the landslide, which left more than a thousand people dead and thousands missing. 

A team from Harvard University (United States) and the University of Ghana has analysed the meteorological factors that can most significantly affect cocoa crops, the raw material used to make chocolate. In addition to low rainfall during the dry season – a long-standing concern – heavy rainfall during the wet season has emerged as a key factor. This pattern was observed in all three countries studied, which are major cocoa producers: Ghana, Ecuador and Indonesia. The authors, who have published their findings in PNAS, emphasise that rainfall harmful to cocoa is linked to larger-scale climate patterns, such as El Niño or variations in sea surface temperature in the Atlantic; consequently, it is possible to predict some poor harvest years before the damage occurs, with sufficient advance warning to alert farmers.

Cities’ adaptation to climate change is not progressing fast enough to protect their inhabitants from increasing heatwaves, infectious diseases and exposure to pollen, which are having an ever-greater impact on the urban population. This is the main conclusion of a study published in The Lancet Public Health, based on 28 indicators from more than 850 European cities, including many in Spain such as Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia. The greatest improvements were observed in cities that increased their green space. The study also suggests that risks are rising more rapidly in southern and eastern Europe.

Summer holidays in Spanish schools are amongst the longest in Europe, and every year the debate resurfaces as to whether their length is appropriate or excessive. Do they affect the knowledge and skills acquired? Could they have an impact on well-being? Do they affect all children equally? How could the summer months be improved for children and teenagers?

The peaks of European mountains such as the Pyrenees or the Sierra Nevada may be gaining plant species as the climate warms, but this apparent increase in biodiversity is masking a growing wave of local extinctions. These are the main conclusions of a study published in the journal Science, which includes Spanish participation and analyses nearly a thousand vegetation plots spread across 62 European mountain peaks. The reason is that higher-altitude mountain regions have gained plant species in recent decades as plants from lower altitudes have expanded up the slopes, but this may mask the decline or disappearance of specialised, high-altitude resident species.

Various models estimate that global temperatures will rise by more than 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels in the coming years, which will increase the vulnerability of societies and economies to climate change. A new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) states that it is still possible to reduce temperatures and meet the targets of the Paris Agreement. The report identifies a trajectory of overshoot, peak and decline as the best option. The key would be to minimise the magnitude and duration of this overshoot and to try to return to below 1.5 °C as soon as possible.

So far this year, up to 20 August, 262,000 hectares have been burnt in Spain, compared with the average of 105,600 hectares burnt between 2015 and 2024. Large-scale wildfires, exacerbated by climate change, are increasing both in frequency and in the area affected. But what happens in the forests after a fire? Can the woodland regenerate on its own? What criteria should be followed? We analyse, with the help of experts, how these ecosystems recover and what measures are taken to protect and restore them.

A team of researchers in Germany has analyzed various factors to estimate the potential annual forest area burned in Europe by the end of the century. According to their findings, in a low-emissions scenario, the area burned would increase by 39%, while it could almost triple in a high-emissions scenario. However, improvements in fire management have the potential to significantly limit these projections. The authors, who published their work in the journal Global Change Biology, point out that “while reducing emissions is essential to lessening the impact of fires, the results also show that improvements in prevention, early detection, and firefighting play a key role in helping to reduce the extent of the affected area."