Amid summer heat waves in the northern hemisphere, the Lapland region, popularly known as “Santa’s Land”, recorded the highest temperatures in just over a hundred years.
According to data from the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the weather station at Kevo Nature Reserve, for example, recorded 33.6 ° C on Monday (5), the region’s highest score since 1914. That year. , Finland’s largest municipality, Inari, registered the mark of 34.7ºC.
In general, the average temperature in July in the municipality of Utsjoki, where the Kevo nature reserve is located, varies between a maximum temperature of 16ºC and a minimum of 8ºC. In winter, the average temperature is -4ºC. In 2015, the region broke the record of -37.3 ° C.
According to climate change specialists, the phenomenon of global warming will not necessarily increase temperatures in all seasons of the year, but will especially increase episodes of extreme weather conditions.
In the northern hemisphere summer of this year, for example, the temperature range throughout the day can be huge: ranging from 32 ° C during the day to 10 ° C at night.
The region’s main Christmas-themed tourist attraction is in the town of Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland, almost a five-hour drive south of Kevo. There is Vila do Papai Noel, created in the 1980s and which today has a chalet complex housing a hotel, two restaurants, themed shops, the Santa Claus corner and the post office that receives letters from the world. whole. The line of the Arctic Circle passes through the middle of Santa Claus village.
A local tourist team, dressed up as Santa Claus and elves, even posted a photo on Instagram next to a thermometer that read 34 ° C.
Meteorologist Mika Rantanen, a climate change and extreme climate researcher at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, told public broadcaster Yle that climate change is not the only cause of these high temperatures. For him, we should not wonder if global warming has caused heat waves or storms for example, but how much this phenomenon has intensified heat waves or storms.
Rantanen posted on his Twitter profile that the country is set to break the record for 26 consecutive days of highs above 25 ° C. The current count is 19 days.
Meanwhile, the researcher points out, the extent of arctic ice has also broken a record, albeit negative. It is 1.1 million square kilometers less than the extension recorded in the first decade of the 2000s, an area almost the size of the state of Pará.