I recently commented on the strange phenomenon of the swans not breeding this summer, so when Michael Streeter, Editor of FrenchEntrée Property, asks: "Is the French climate changing?", I went to have a closer look. This is what he had to say on the subject:
Visitors to France in the summer of 2006 could have been forgiven for being a little confused. Parts of June and much of July saw one of the hottest spells in recent years as temperatures soared into the mid-30’s Celsius and beyond for days on end.
Yet for anyone who ventured out for a holiday in August the weather could hardly have been more different.
Tourists were forced to reach for their sweaters and cardigans as an unsettled spell descended on the country and produced some of the coolest weather for many decades. The temperature reached just 16 degrees C one day in Paris, the coldest August day in the capital for 60 years.
The result was that though the south and especially the Mediterranean coast fared rather better, much of France shivered rather than sunbathed its way through the month.
Such extremes came on top of a string of very dry winters and the notorious heat wave or ‘canicule’ of 2003 which was held responsible for the deaths of many thousands of people - most of them elderly or infirm.
All of this naturally raises the question: is France’s climate changing?
According to Serge Planton, head of the climatic research group for Météo France, it is not possible to blame the recent extreme variations on global warming. But he added: ‘There is evidence that it has been getting warmer in recent years. We know that the climate is warming.’
Studies show that the overall temperature in France has risen by about one degree C in the last century.
Planton also says that by studying the number of ‘summer days’ – that is days where the temperature is 25 degrees C or more – researchers have shown that there have been more warm spells in the last decade than, for example, the 1970s. And that trend is likely to continue.
‘We also know that extreme hot spells are more numerous now compared with what we have experienced before. And it is very likely that they will increase in the future,’ he says.
Planton also says that we can expect fewer frosts in future winters.
He cites a recent health study that suggests that the current mortality rates for winter and summer could change dramatically. At the moment most deaths associated with so-called extreme weather in France still occur in winter, with fewer happening in summer. But a move towards milder winters and hotter summers with more heat waves would reverse those figures.
However, the biggest challenge facing the country, says Serge Planton, could be the provision of water supplies.
Météo France predictions suggest that winters will get milder and wetter across the country - especially in the north and west - but that summers will get drier and overall rainfall could fall by ten per cent.
The good news is such predictions could mean even sunnier springs and autumns in many regions of France.
The scenarios also suggest that while the whole of France will get warmer, it will be the south and especially the Mediterranean area that will get relatively hotter still. ‘We could be talking about a climate that is more like the south of Spain is now,’ says Serge Planton.
All of this means, of course, that for those Britons who like their summers hot and dry, the long-range forecast in France looks good despite those unwelcome August shivers.
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