BURNING BALEARICS

The warning was fired yesterday by the director of the Balearic met. office Agustí Jansà during a presentation of the programme for World Weather Day on march 23.

Jansà said that, while we can no longer do anything to prevent temperatures from rising over the next decades, by working together in the fight to slow climate change, we can ease the increase in temperature to between 2 and 4ºC. “There's no real grounds to be alarmed, but if we do not take practical action, the temperatures will rise by 8ºC and that's rediculous,” Jansà proclaimed yesterday. He added that, even if we can reduce the increase to 4ºC, it is still going to have a significant effect on the Balearics and our lives. “The proof is already quite clear that the climate is changing, regional temperatures are already above the norm,” he said “and this is going to become the norm from now on here in the Balearics.” A recent report published by the Wageningen University in Holland has highlighted that the Mediterranean faces the biggest threat with a significant decline in rainfall, across SOuthern Europe as a whole and more heat waves like 2003 which claimed the lives of thousands of people.

Mediterranean islands risk disappearing all together as sea levels rise while island water supplies will become contaminated by sea salt and island life would become almost impossible.

What is more, sunshine holidays in the booking Mediterranean may become a thing of the past - as will European ski holidays as the snow caps melt.
The implications for the tourist industry and destinations like the Balearics, which depends on tourism to survive, are serious.
Jansà said yesterday that every region of the planet needs to take action “it will all help have a universal effect,” he added.
A host of events are being organised to mark World Weather Day, including a lecture by one of Spain's leading meteorologists José María Cisneros.