Climate in Spain: past, present and future. Regional climate change assessment report

Abstract

Climate change is nowadays a reality and one of the most important challenges that humanity has to face this century, because of the threat that it represents, among others, for the economy, health, food and safety. There are increasingly more scientific evidences that we are at a critical moment, although we can still tackle the negative consequences of climate change if we take decisive actions at a global level. One of the key actions needed to meet this challenge is to gain as detailed an understanding as possible of how the climate is changing, what the climate will be like in the next hundred years and how these changes are going to affect us. This is where the scientific community plays a central role, since the formulation of policies for mitigating and adapting to climate change depends on accurate scientific knowledge. The CLIVAR-Spain Committee and Thematic Network, whose activities I have been supporting since it was created in 2004, has built itself up over the course of the last five years as a network that seeks to promote climate research and advance scientific knowledge of climate change in Spain. Its first report, published in 2006, entitled “The state of the art of the Spanish contribution to the Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) study”, enabled us to gain a better understanding of the state of climate research in Spain. Now this second report comes at a key moment, just after the Copenhagen Summit in which, once again, the urgent need to take steps to face climate change and the importance of scientific knowledge as a guide to this process have been made clear. Structured in five sections, this report contains highly relevant information about climate variability and climate changes (both past and recent), future climate projections and projected variations in the frequency and intensity of extreme events in the Iberian Peninsula, which, as the IPCC indicates in its recent Fourth Assessment Report, is a region that is particularly vulnerable to climate changes. Undoubtedly, this information will be highly useful for planning actions in areas liable to be affected by climate change. As I did at the time of the presentation of the First Report, I would like once again to express my support to the CLIVAR-Spain committee and to encourage it to continue to publish periodic assessment reports. I also wish to extend my support to the Spanish scientists who comprise the CLIVAR-Spain Thematic Network, so that they continue to endeavour in their research on climate and climate change in Spain. Without a doubt, both efforts will help boost the research activities of other national and international initiatives in the field of climate variability and climate change and will promote greater participation of national research efforts and researchers at the international level.