With advance, because everything is already decided, Météo France drew up this Wednesday the climatological report 2022 in France.
And with this certainty, even if there is still December, that this year will be the hottest on record.
We will end 2022 with an average temperature over the past year of between 14.2 and 14.6°C, which represents a thermal anomaly of +1.1 to +1.5°C compared to the 1991-2020 normals. , anticipates Météo France.
This summer and fall have been particularly hot this year.
Météo France sees this as a clear illustration of climate change in France.
For the past three years, Météo-France has drawn up the climatological report for the current year at the end of each year.
Normally, the appointment is fixed for the press during December.
No need to wait until then this year.
Even if the data for December are still missing, "2022 is already guaranteed to be the hottest year ever measured in France since the start of the records in 1900", assures Matthieu Sorel, climatologist of the meteorological organization.
Overview of this balance sheet in four key figures.
1st, the rank at which ends the warmest autumn on record
Finally, January 1, 2022, marked by remarkable mildness across the country, set the tone for what was to follow.
Admittedly, there were a few cold spells, particularly in the second half of January, making this month the only one of the year ending below normal.
Matthieu Sorel also adds the episode of late frost, at the beginning of April, "which, like last year, still caused heavy damage to crops", he specifies.
But out of there, the rest of 2022 resulted in a succession of hot months, with sometimes strong anomalies.
Let us remember October, exceptionally mild.
“We exceeded +3°C in anomalies,” says Matthieu Sorel.
Moreover, this autumn 2022 ranks first among the warmest autumns ever recorded in France since 1900, tied with that of 2006. "Winter ranks fifteenth among the hottest, spring the fourth place, and summer in second place”, continues the climatologist from Météo-France.
In the end, “even if December turns out to be cold, even very cold, 2022 will finish in the number 1 rank of the hottest years in France, already assures Matthieu Sorel.
We will end with an average temperature over the past year of between 14.2 and 14.6°C, which represents a thermal anomaly of +1.1 to +1.5°C compared to the 1991-2020 normals.
Worrying sign: eight of the ten hottest years ever recorded in France occurred after 2010.
1,500, the number of heat records broken
This is another striking figure in the 2022 report drawn up by Matthieu Sorel: "No less than 1,500 heat records have been broken this year, against only 308 for cold", he points out.
A clear imbalance that the climatologist adds to the evidence, “if any more were needed”, that “climate change is behind all this”.
"We break heat records with disconcerting ease, but we have a hard time breaking cold records, and we do it with an extremely weak delta," he continues.
In a stationary climate, we should have about the same number of broken records, between hot and cold.
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Among these outstanding heat records is therefore the +3°C anomalies in October.
Matthieu Sorel also dwells on last summer, crossed by three heat waves.
Including that of five days, between June 15 and 19, the earliest ever recorded at the national level since 1947, notes Météo-France.
“We had never crossed the 40°C mark so early in the season in mainland France,” he adds.
We also suffered 33 days of heat wave in 2022, eleven more than the old record of 2003 and its heat wave which marked the spirits.
“However, the cumulative severity of the heat waves in 2002 remains lower than that year,” tempers Matthieu Sorel.
3, as the third longest drought in history
On the precipitation side, Météo-France uses more quotation marks in its report.
The months of December can turn out to be rainy and change the situation.
Matthieu Sorel still has one certainty: “2022 will be one of the driest years that France has known since the start of measurements, that is to say since 1959 for precipitation.
We should end the year with a rainfall deficit of about 20 to 25% compared to 1991-2021 normals.
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As for temperatures, no corner of the metropolis was spared by this lack of rain.
“However, it is slightly more marked in certain departments in the center-west and south-west, and even more marked around the Mediterranean, including Corsica.
Here again, records have fallen.
Matthieu Sorel cites May, with a rainfall deficit of 60%, and even July,
Result: the drought was also striking.
It started at the end of winter, and the situation then deteriorated, month after month, when the lack of rains was combined with the arrival of the first heat, accelerating the evaporation of the water contained in the grounds.
“Soil moisture index levels will reach record highs in June and August,” points out Matthieu Sorel.
This 2022 drought, which lasted eight months, is the third longest ever in France.
It ranks behind that of 1989-1990, extremely long (17 months) and that of 2005 (9 months).
It is also the fifth most extensive drought in the territory.
“Three-quarters of the country were concerned”, always specifies Matthieu Sorel.
2050, the date when the heat of 2022 could become normal
Météo-France sees in this climate year 2022 the clear illustration of climate change in France and believes that it could become normal in the middle of the 21st century.
To affirm this, it relies on attribution studies.
“We use climate simulations by estimating the probability of occurrence and intensity of a singular event [a heat wave for example] in our world, that is to say marked by an anthropogenic climate change , compared to another, with only natural forcings”, explains Agathe Drouin, another climatologist at Météo-France.
This method has been applied in particular to this summer's heat anomalies, including the early wave in June.
"Such an event has a fairly long return period in our current climate, around 20 years, compared to 200 years all the same in a climate not warmed by human activities," says Agathe Drouin.
In other words, it would have been ten times less likely to occur without anthropogenic climate change.
And its intensity would also have been 1.6 to 1.8°C less intense.
".
If we project ourselves a little into the future, “this early heat wave could be two to three times more likely in 2040 than in 2022, continues Agathe Drouin.
And its intensity would be at least 0.7°C higher.
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No better globally?
This 2022 climate report drawn up by Météo-France for the country then echoes the words of Petteri Talas, of November 6th.
Without waiting for the end of the year again, the Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization estimated that 2022 would be between the fifth and sixth hottest year ever recorded globally.
However, for the third consecutive year, we are in
La Nina
configuration , a natural climatic phenomenon which normally means that temperatures are generally lower on the globe than in
El Nino
configuration .
In short, not reassuring.
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