Shock News! It’s Hot In Portugal!
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Cunningham
The BBC is still playing the heatwave/climate card!
Firefighters in Portugal are battling to contain wildfires engulfing thousands of hectares amid soaring temperatures.
Around 800 personnel attended a fire near the southern town of Odemira overnight on Monday, with more than 1,400 people having to evacuate.
At least nine firefighters have been injured tackling the fires.
Temperatures in excess of 40C (104F) are expected to hit much of the Iberian peninsula this week.
Three major fires that scorched hundreds of hectares in Spain over the weekend have been brought under control, but weather alerts remain in place across much of the country.
In Portugal, Monday saw a temperature of 46.4C (116F), the hottest of the year so far, recorded in Santarém.
The fire near Odemira began on Saturday and was driven south into the hilly interior of the Algarve, Portugal’s main tourism region, by strong winds.
It has so far destroyed some 6,700 hectares (16,600 acres) of land, while a total of 19 villages, four tourist accommodations and a camping site have been evacuated.
The town’s mayor, Helder Guerreiro, has said the situation is "critical, difficult, and complex".
In Spain, fires near the south-western coastal cities of Cadiz and Huelva and in the northern Catalonia region scorched more than 1,000 hectares (2,470 acres) in total on Saturday and Sunday.
This week’s heatwave will mark the third to hit the Iberian peninsula this summer.
Ruben del Campo of Spain’s State Meteorological Agency told Reuters it was being caused by a large mass of hot, dry air from North Africa and would be "generally more intense, more widespread and a little longer-lasting" than the two that hit in July.
Climate change increases the risk of the hot, dry weather that is likely to fuel wildfires.
The world has already warmed by about 1.1C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66435160
The BBC would like you to believe that hot weather is somehow unusual in Spain and Portugal!
And as usual they provide no context at all. The big fire currently near Odemira has so far burnt 6700 ha, but this is a tiny figure compared to the annual wildfire area in Portugal each year. And the data clearly shows there is no upward trend.
As for temperatures of 40C this week, what is so unusual about that?
Cadiz, for instance, which is mentioned in the article, hit 39C on Sunday, and the forecast is for much cooler weather:
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/spain/cadiz/ext
But temperatures of 39C in Cadiz are certainly not unheard of:
https://www.ecad.eu/indicesextremes/customquerytimeseriesplots.php
In short the BBC is catastrophising ordinary summer weather in the Med.
FOOTNOTE
I happened to hear a short clip from Lorraine this morning, which seemed to even blame the sunbed wars on the “heatwave”!
And the wet bloke reporting from the Costa del Sol was nearly in tears as he talked of holidays being spelt by this and wildfires, (even though the fires were miles away up in the mountains).
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
And there was I thinking that UK citizens went to the Iberian Peninsula to live or to have holidays in hot weather. Perhaps the BBC thinks they go there for some other reason.
Correction for the BBC. “The world has already warmed by about 1.1C since the industrial era began” should be “The world has already warmed by about 1.1C since the end of the Little Ice Age, and for that we are truly grateful”.
AND…. at the end of the Little Ice Age, the asinine “global temperature” was at an ANOMALOUS low, so IF science is being done ( I can assure you most certainly it is not), any reference to that time would have to be qualified stating the departure today from whatever the ideal global temperature is (which it’s self is also asinine because how can there be an ideal average temperature for a revolving and oscillating planet moving relative to a single heat source which currently has ice at the poles)?
The equally asinine reference to the start of the industrial revolution is in it’s self wilfully absurd and used for no other reason than sleight of hand by the scientifically challenged arts graduates promoting this effluent as if one guy discovering the wonderful happenstance of Black Band Iron Ore located together with coal in the Midlands was responsible for ending a 500 year period of …..hell!
Hey BBC…. what about the dreadful summer we are having? It is already autumn where I am. “Weather” is how we can have two nice warm days during the summer in England during 2022 and a complete damp squib in 2023. Ever heard that “weather” is 3 dimensional, dynamic and complex? Clearly not as it does not fit the the narrative.
Also remember that the “1.1°C rise” is at least 50% down to the enthusiastic application of thumbs on scales, not least the ignoring of the Urban Heat Island effects.
Even if it had genuinely warmed “2.2°C “, It would almost certainly have been 100% beneficial, just like double the trivial but beneficial alleged increase in atmospheric CO2 levels would be.
“…already…”
Peddling, by insinuation, the tired nonsense of “tipping points” and “climate runaway.” I think the CAGW crowd have forgotten that it started as a propaganda trick. They have said it so often that now they actually believe it.
The “world temperature” since 1855 is fake. The HADCRUT was based in 1855 on ONE thermometer in the entire southern hemisphere. This was in what is now Indonesia, and also the basis for 1856 & 1857 and was joined in 1858 by single thermometers in both Sydney and Melbourne.
Half the world by ‘creative thought”?
Ah yes, but without CO2 every day in Iberia would be exactly the average for the month, none of these nasty above average “heatwaves” for 2-3 days
A list of ignition sources of Forrest fires:-
1. Lightning
2. Arson
Have I missed anything?
No.
You have missed accidental human activity, mainly broken bottles or similar. I’m not sure what %age of fires start by sun concentrated through glass but there are certainly some.
In California it appears that quite a few are the result of bad maintenance of electric cables.
In any event you are right that “global warming” per se is not a cause of fires!
“In Europe, more than nine out of 10 fires are ignited by human activities, like arson, disposable barbeques, electricity lines, or littered glass, according to EU data.”
Forrest?
BBQs
Electrical installations
Broken bottles
Utter lack of fuel management (dry grass etc)
Dry wood spontaneously combusts at any air temperature 3 or more degrees above the long term average for that area s measured between 1960 and 1990…
I lived in Southern Spain for 18 years. Every summer was hot, I was once in Madrid in the middle of July & the temp was 42 degrees. In the summer both Cordoba & Savilla are unbearable. Fires are always an annual occurrence, either started deliberately or by human error.
I retired to the Algarve to specifically enjoy the better climate. Most people I speak to think that 2023 has so far been one of the better years for fires. A few things to note: many of the fires here turn out to have had some kind of human involvement, whether through arson or carelessness; much of the rural areas here are populated by trees with a high oil content (such as eucalyptus, grown for toilet paper) so any fire is exacerbated; Portugal is finding increasing deposits of lithium across its territories, so “cleared” land is easier to explore for such resources (nudge-nudge, wink-wink!); the Portuguese fire service is largely voluntary and under-resourced, and so is greatly dependent upon organised fundraising.
“…eucalyptus, grown for toilet paper…”
Are you saying my toilet paper will catch fire? Perhaps from friction?
Lucky I always wet it before getting too close and personal.
Lovely picture, very dramatic. Will the BBC be offering framed prints?
Good news from Kent and Sussex. Email today from South East Water.
‘Restrictions on the use of a hosepipe or sprinkler have been lifted for our customers in Kent and Sussex with immediate effect.
Known as a Temporary Use Ban (TUB), it was put in place following the hottest June on record.
‘Hottest June on record’? Who do you think you are kidding Mr Hinton (CEO)?
Rather weird isn’t it Nigel. Even in 2022 (and this year) there were no hosepipe restrictons whatsoever where I live (served by the former Folkestone and Dover Water Company in Barham) and yet just 500m away (outskirts of Kingston, Canterbury) South East Water customers were under full restrictions. How is it some companies have no problems at all and yet others alongside have major issues? Certainly zero to do with availabilityof water.
All to do with sudden temperature fluctuations last December fracturing the pipes according to Mr Hilton. -7C to + 13C on 17th December. That was the excuse to Ofwat in February at least!
Climate change fracturing pipes. And the dog ate his homework.
Southeast Water has skimped on replacement work for DECADES.
I will tell you what a big temperature change is. A friend was at school in rural Alberta one winter during an unusually warm day (+35 F) when they were warned to go home immediately, as the weather was going to change. He lived two miles away and decided to walk home. Before he got there it was -40 F. In fact his father had to come out in a car to find him and save his life.
What’s temperature got to do with rain anyway? And one warm month somehow depletes all the water?
Apologies – out of context but I thought worth mentioning. This was in The Conversation this morning:
“How climate change might trigger more earthquakes and volcanic eruptions
Matthew Blackett, Coventry University
Climate change is causing increasingly severe weather – but it’s not just hazards at the Earth’s surface we should be concerned about.”
Someone should tell this clown that it’s actually the other way round!
There is a school of thought – remember, this is now an approved phrase with the alleged experts – that earthquakes are the result of strong solar wind streams hitting the earth, and that volcanic eruptions increase during times of low solar activity. Of course, both these ideas are garlic to ecofascists as they might lead people to wonder what else the sun does for us.
Tsunamis too!
‘The work is part of the Landslide-Tsunami project, part of NERC’s Arctic research programme. One focus is on what effect climate change may have on seabed stability.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-45541721
The Industrial era, what a fudge factor that is! I would take it as the invention of the team engine which allowed smelting to be large scale. That would put the Industrial age starting around 1666. (Right next to Ice Fairs on the Thames and smack dab in the middle of the little Ice Age.) 1850, as stated above, is in the last 20 yrs of the little Ice age, either way, a classic “perhaps they won’t notice eZealot ploy! Pathetic.
‘At least nine firefighters have been injured tackling the fires.’
At least they learned tackling is not the way to fight fires.
‘about 1.1C’
Approximately. With a decimal point.
‘Climate change increases the risk of the hot, dry weather that is likely to fuel wildfires.’
The old “We-can’t-blame-it-on-climate-change-so-we-are-going-to-blame-it-on-climate-change” trick.
With some of the dodgy weather station sites, that should be 1.1C plus or minus 2C!!
Eco warrior arson? Lots of it about
1400 people having to evacuate.
I hope there were plenty of toilets for them all.
Did the report mention the type of vegetation which was on fire ? Was it dry scrub or forest trees?A lot of mediterranean plants are like gorse in other countries , they dry out in summer and are easily cleared by farmers who prefer grass for grazing flocks. The Neolithic and Bronze Age spread of herders used to be blamed.
“…herders used to be blamed…”
Or a genuine change in climate.
“Today, four-fifths of Greece are barren: in early times…the mountain slopes were well forested…It is a fair inference that rainfall was both heavier and less catastrophic…”
H.D.F. Kitto, The Greeks. Penguin Books.1957.
“The third to hit this summer…”
It’s a few days of very hot weather. This is beyond absurd. And I’d beware forecasts – in SW France we were forecast 39 degrees for 9th August a week before, yet it turned out to be 32 degrees.
Perhaps I’m behind the curve but I must plug the Global Temperature site at the very bottom of the WUWT site below all the posts. The global temp is updated every couple of minutes from tens of thousands of surface thermometers, citing the number and the last site sampled. Worldwide and sweeps up all the badly sited and UHI one imagines. Tap on ‘for source info see temp global’. And click on the down arrow for trends. Astounding. Our overheated globe is at 14.16degsC. Terrifying Since I’ve been watching for a couple of weeks the globe has warmed four hundredths of a degree Fahrenheit. Enjoy