Fires and storms split Italy.The climatologist Giacomin:«Nothing is normal, nothing but catastrophism» – The interview

The expert, president of the Italian Climate Network, comments on the weather events that have affected Italy in recent days

The meteorological events of the last few hours have split Italy in two.In the North, a violent storm it hit Milan and other Lombardy provinces leaving behind a long trail of damage:roofs uncovered, flooding, fallen trees.In Cedegolo, in the province of Brescia, a 16 year old girl is dead after being hit by a tree while at a scout camp.While Northern Italy was dealing with hail and lightning strikes, yesterday in Palermo the thermometer reached 46 degrees.Since last night some of the mountains surrounding the Sicilian capital are engulfed in flames.A situation that also led to the closure of the Falcone e Borsellino airport for a few hours.What is happening in Milan and Palermo has its roots in the same phenomenon:climate changes.We talked about it with Serena Giacomin:climatologist, meteorologist and president of the Italian Climate Network association.

Last week the heat waves, today the fires in the South and the violent storms in the North.Are they all sides of the same coin?

«I would say yes.When we talk about climate extremization, this is exactly what it means.We are living in a dystopian situation, which will not occur in some future but is already before our eyes.It is not normal to have 46 or 47°C, even in the hottest months of the year.These are temperatures that fall outside the climate statistics of Mediterranean summers, with anomalies of up to 10/12 degrees higher than the values ​​we should record in this period.This time there is also an aggravating circumstance:the heat wave, especially in the South, is very long-lasting.This means that the health impact is also amplified, as is the risk of fires."

Several scientific studies state that these events could never have occurred without climate change.Why?

«The cause of all these phenomena is global warming.As we have a warmer atmosphere, even exceptional peaks of heat tend to increase in intensity.There were certainly heat waves in the past too, but they were less intense than they are today.We have a tendency towards extremism:it was hot before, now it's hotter.And in some cases it is excessively hotter.Added to this is another element:higher temperatures lead to more violent phenomena.This happens because heat and humidity are the fuel for storms."

Yesterday the minister Nello Musumeci said that the tropicalization of the climate has arrived in Italy.What is it about?

«From a temperature point of view, we have particularly intense waves of sultry heat, which unlike scorching heat is not dry but humid.We then have an invasive air mass, the so-called North African anticyclone, which makes our climate similarly tropical.We need to see how this trend will change in the coming years.Today we are seeing rains that can suddenly release huge quantities of precipitation to the ground.We talk about all this as if it were new, but it is a scenario proclaimed by the scientific community.We should take the data made available to make action strategies, without waiting for the emergency phase."

For example?What can Italy do to defend itself from extreme weather events?

«Solutions can be mitigation or adaptation.First of all, we must reduce climate-changing gas emissions in every sector:livestock, energy, building redevelopment and more.As regards adaptation, we must secure the territory to make the consequences of climate change less serious and less impactful.Let us remember that 94% of Italian municipalities are at risk of hydrogeological instability.But these actions have been implemented since yesterday, not today.Science has been telling us this for years."

The Minister for the Environment Gilberto Pichetto has said that "denialism is as wrong as catastrophism".Is that so?

«It is difficult to put the two positions on the same level, because there are many nuances.Nobody likes the polarization of the debate, but there are different measures.It is also useless to talk about sensationalism if it is 48 degrees in Sicily and Sardinia.It's difficult to have a moderate tone when the situation is the one we've been experiencing for 10 days now.Those temperatures are extreme values, so you have to take note of them.It's not exaggeration, it's increasing the level of attention and alertness.Of course, all this happens within a media chaos that perhaps needs some order.We cannot treat the issue of climate change as if there were an ongoing debate."

Does it still make sense to talk about "good weather" and "bad weather"?

«These are terms that I have never appreciated, because they are relativisable.Good weather can be good at one time and not at another.For example:If it hasn't rained for months, can the arrival of the rain be considered good weather?They are non-technical terms, which can make us lose the meaning of things.Having said that, among everything we see around, perhaps it is not the thing I would focus the most attention on."

Do you think that events like the ones we are witnessing in recent days can increase awareness on the topic of climate change?

«I hope so.Citizen awareness is increasing:today many more questions are asked than in the past and there are more and more training and education initiatives.From the point of view of political push, it would be necessary for these topics to become transversal, but perhaps this is a utopia.Unfortunately, experience tells me that we talk about it a lot in the emergency phase and then attention is lost.I hope that this time it doesn't happen and that we can make progress.I must say that I didn't like the debate of the last few hours at all.Many still believe that "everything is normal", but things are not like that at all."

Photo credits:Graphic design by Vincenzo Monaco | On the left, the damage caused by the storm of July 25th in Milan.On the right, the fires in the surroundings of Palermo.