​We always hear about the hottest year since there are meteorological measurements, we read about many heat records, but could another cold year be coming? What would an apocalyptic scenario look like? Why is there so little snow in winter? What can 2024 be like? What really surprised climate scientists? In the article, you can read about these things in a HotNews.ro interview with climatologist Roxana Boyariu.

From 2012 until now, almost every year has been in the top of the warmest years in the world, as well as in Romania. But could this be a very different year, meaning much colder than usual over the past decade?

It would be a cooler year if an American sci-fi movie was scripted

It would be possible, says climatologist Roxana Boyariu, but only under exceptional circumstances. It could happen, and it could happen because of an “extreme and external to the climate system” natural phenomenon: some very powerful volcanic eruptions in the equatorial zone.

Such eruptions can throw into the upper layers of the atmosphere those aerosols that within 2-3 years can lead to a decrease in the average global temperature even by 0.5 C. The chances of this are minimal.

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However, Roxana Boyariu said that episodes with lower temperatures than usual are less common. In general, we have increased amounts of heat and water vapor in the climate system, and given the increased amount of heat, the system is biased toward states where we have warmer temperatures, and it is very unlikely that we will have a significantly colder year ahead.

2024 and crossing the psychological climate threshold

I asked Roxanne Boyaria what we can say about the year that started three weeks ago, and she said that we are in for a warm year with many extreme weather conditions.

“2024 is likely to be one of the warmest years. Indeed, there is a significant possibility that in 2024 we will cross this psychological threshold and have an increase in average annual temperature of more than 1.5 C compared to pre-industrial levels. In 2023 we were very close, this year we could still exceed this level, but I would like to emphasize that this does NOT mean that we have not reached the Paris Agreement target, because this agreement means a systematic overshoot, a decade of this limit.”

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A climatologist says this is an alarming signal that global warming is accelerating. Another important point is that extreme events are bound to be record-breaking, and temperatures will rise not only over land, but also over the oceans, and not just in the Pacific, but in various other areas of the oceans and seas.

The phenomenon of marine heat waves was also present in 2023 and will be present in 2024 as well. a certain level of accumulated heat”

Rain replaces snow, and floods can also occur in winter

Why does it snow so rarely and so little in the south, even at low altitude?

Roxana Boyariou says that from a statistical point of view, everything is related to the signal of global warming: “On the one hand, we are talking about the impact of increasing temperatures in winter, on the other hand, we are not talking about significant changes in the amount of precipitation itself, but we are talking about change in the ratio between liquid and solid precipitation. Precipitation falls more often in the form of rain than in the form of snow, and this affects the development of the snow cover and its duration.

This is noticeably stronger in low-lying areas, because in these areas the increase in temperature is felt more strongly when the threshold that determines the type of precipitation (snow vs. rain) is exceeded.

So, the precipitation regime has not changed, but we have fluctuations and cannot conclude that in winter precipitation is less and the proportion of rain increases compared to snow. Therefore, the increase in temperature changes the type of precipitation, because there are more and more days with positive temperatures.

In winter, floods also become more frequent, which is very bad. In addition, rain has a different way of interacting with other components of the climate system in the hydrological cycle, explains Roxana Boyariu. “Rain puts less stress on the soil, it remains with fewer resources, because part of it flows to the surface. High temperatures evaporate what is left in the soil, and this applies not only to the hot season, but also to the cold.”

In some places there are problems with precipitation, because in the cold season it is in liquid form, and these winter floods can be considered extreme phenomena.

We cannot conclude that at low altitudes we have less and less precipitation, with low temperatures. No, we are talking about fluctuations during which the temperature changes the types of precipitation,” says Roxana Boyariu.

If it rains instead of snow in winter, the soil cannot absorb all the water, and as a result, some of the water evaporates without reaching the soil and is therefore lost to agriculture. Winters with too little snow can contribute to summer drought.

When even climatologists were genuinely surprised

Sometimes we see news stories with exaggerated headlines like “Meteorologists stunned.” Well, in 2023, they were really surprised by how warm the year was compared to estimates made at the end of 2022.

The year 2023 was also exceptional in terms of weather for Romania, as it was the warmest in the last 120 years for which there is a lot of weather data, and because six of the 12 months were much warmer than normal.

2019 was the warmest year in Romania so far.

“If we think about the level of Romania, there were temperatures that exceeded 35 C, which is the heat wave threshold, in the third decade of October, which is a very late record for such temperatures.”

It was also a record year for extreme events because the ANM has never issued so many red alerts.

Roxanne Boyariu says climatologists were also surprised by the high level by which the 1850-1900 average temperatures were exceeded last year

“Even in the climatological community there was surprise about the gap by which the pre-industrial norm was exceeded, something that was not predicted, but it is a gap that also at the local level meant very large amplitudes, with which previous records for months were exceeded, and days 2023 of the year all over the world”.

In 2023, there were several very dry months, there were also places where there was no rain for more than a month, so in the south of Moldova and in some areas of Dobrudja, there is still a soil drought, which means that deep in the soil there are still insufficient water reserves .

However, the rest of the country is doing better, and the water supply is between near-sufficient and optimal levels. And in Moldova, for example, in the region of Iasi, after it was dry in autumn, a steady layer of snow fell in January.

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