{"id":239379,"date":"2026-07-18T08:07:56","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T08:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/this-graph-illustrates-the-heat-waves-of-the-iberian-peninsula-as-waves-and-clearly-indicates-a-tsunami-is-about-to-strike\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T08:07:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T08:07:58","slug":"this-graph-illustrates-the-heat-waves-of-the-iberian-peninsula-as-waves-and-clearly-indicates-a-tsunami-is-about-to-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/this-graph-illustrates-the-heat-waves-of-the-iberian-peninsula-as-waves-and-clearly-indicates-a-tsunami-is-about-to-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"This Graph Illustrates the Heat Waves of the Iberian Peninsula as Waves and Clearly Indicates: A Tsunami is About to Strike"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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What you see above these lines is a peculiar climate graph and much less intuitive than the typical colorful maps we often use to understand climate patterns. However, the underlying message of all these visual tools is consistent: the climate is changing at an alarming rate. This specific graph illustrates the heat waves affecting Spain and Portugal as if they were waves of the sea<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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The graph captures episodes of intense heat over the Iberian Peninsula from May to August each year since 2002, focusing on periods of at least three consecutive days where temperatures at 850 hPa (around 1,500 meters high) exceeded the 90th percentile of local historical data. This comprehensive record reveals crucial insights: heat waves are becoming more frequent, arriving earlier, and intensifying<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This remarkable work is from Juan Jes\u00fas Gonz\u00e1lez Alem\u00e1n, a physicist and state meteorologist associated with AEMET, who shared his findings on Twitter. Utilizing ERA5 data from the European Copernicus service, he emphasizes the urgent message conveyed by the 69 recorded episodes: heat waves are no longer a seasonal anomaly but rather a growing trend.<\/p>\n

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The Iberian Peninsula stands out in Europe as one of the most documented areas concerning warming and heat wave prevalence. The IPCC’s sixth assessment report<\/a> marks this region as warming at a faster pace than global averages, particularly in the Mediterranean basin.<\/p>\n

The Heat Waves of the Iberian Peninsula: A Sea That Predicts a Tsunami<\/h2>\n

Each wave on the graph represents an individual heat episode.<\/strong> The wave’s shape indicates the cumulative heat exceeding the threshold, while the color signifies the event’s total intensity, measured in accumulated degree days. This intuitive color scheme\u2014from pale yellow for mild episodes to garnet for extreme events\u2014allows for quick comprehension of the data.<\/p>\n

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Heat waves in the Iberian Peninsula with temperatures at 850 hPa. JJ Gonz\u00e1lez Alem\u00e1n<\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This graph encapsulates a wealth of data, resembling a beach where patterns of frequency, duration, and intensity of heat waves emerge at a glance. These phenomena typically precede surface heat waves, meaning they can provide vital alerts for public health risk management and wildfire preparedness<\/strong>, serving as further evidence of ongoing climate change.<\/p>\n

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Historical episodes, such as the infamous heat wave that scorched Europe in August 2003<\/a>, which was linked to thousands of fatalities, illustrate the serious implications of these heat waves. More recent heat waves in June 2015 and June 2022 have illustrated a troubling trend: these episodes are occurring with greater density and earlier in the year, especially in May, which is historically less common.<\/p>\n

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While this graph effectively highlights critical data, it’s important to note that it uses a single variable (T850). It does not replace the need for rigorous and thorough statistical analyses involving multiple parameters, which various organizations, including AEMET and the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), continue to provide.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In Xataka | The easiest way to understand global warming, in this climate map with data from 1940<\/p>\n

In Xataka | This is how rain has changed in Spain in the last 30 years, on maps: the result is clear, alarming, and irreversible<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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General News – 2<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What you see above these lines is a peculiar climate graph and much less intuitive than the typical colorful maps we often use to understand climate patterns. However, the underlying message of all these visual tools is consistent: the climate is changing at an alarming rate. This specific graph illustrates the heat waves affecting Spain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":239380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36399],"tags":[21701,2120,32419,24072,5582,216,11289,2296],"class_list":["post-239379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-graph","tag-heat","tag-iberian","tag-illustrates","tag-peninsula","tag-strike","tag-tsunami","tag-waves"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239381,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239379\/revisions\/239381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}