The Canary Islands will not have flowers this spring. The lack of rain will prevent the usual flowering and consequently, a substantial drop in honey production is expected. “Someone stole our winter,” says the island director of the Environment of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Pedro Millán, who highlights the consequences this “extraordinarily dry and warm” winter has for the vegetation and fauna of the islands and in which For the first time in 108 years, it has not snowed on Teide.
As Millán points out, the absence of the white layer on the summit of the island is another indication of climate change. Already in winter 2023 it only snowed once and the snow melted in a matter of hours. “The last snowfall on Teide took place in February 2016 when, in addition to covering the peak of the volcano, the snow covered all the ravines. Since then they have been very scarce... Until this year, when nothing has fallen," says Millán.
The white layer on Teide has a strong psychological component for the inhabitants of the islands: although its effect on the aquifers is not notable, it does help them believe that the water reserves are better than they are. Just fifteen days ago, the Tenerife Council declared a water emergency on the island due to the low level of water reserves in galleries and tanks and with some reservoirs with the worst records in their history. “They always say year of snow, year of goods and this year we are not going to have it. The snow-capped Teide is a symbol of the island and we are going to see it less and less,” he laments.
The lack of snow on the islands has been accompanied this winter by an unusual increase in temperatures, by 2.5 degrees on average. Thermometer records have been recorded in some areas of up to 31 degrees. Furthermore, rainfall has been reduced by 72% compared to the average of other years, as indicated by the Aemet delegate in the Canary Islands, David Suárez. In January, for example, it rained 13% of usual.
The situation has prevented the Cabildo of Tenerife from planting the thousands of specimens of plants and shrubs that it had planned on the 12,500 hectares of the surface that was devastated in the fire that the island suffered last summer. It was not considered extinct until November. The lack of rain has forced plans to be delayed until next fall-winter, while waiting for water. “We were afraid that it would rain and the water would wash away the soil that was burned and prevent us from reforesting. What has happened has been the opposite, we have not been able to put in a single plant,” says Millán.
As he explains, “without moist soil the plants do not survive” and this forces reforestation to be postponed while waiting for a rainier winter, although work is already underway to prepare the soil. Even the famous horizontal rain that reaches the islands thanks to the trade winds and waters the peaks has been reduced this year due to heat waves and haze. The episodes of Saharan wind, which displaces the trade winds, have multiplied this winter, when there have only been twelve days without haze. “We thought that the effects of climate change were something that we were not going to see and that it would affect our children and grandchildren, but it has accelerated,” Millán reflects.
The high temperatures and lack of precipitation also place the Canary Islands in a complicated situation in the face of forest fires. In fact, there are several islands that have already declared a pre-alert for fire risk and forced to raise their devices. “It is unusual that in the middle of winter we are at risk of fires,” says Millán, who points out that if the devices were previously activated between June and September, they now extend from March to November “and the trend is for it to be for the entire year” with critical moments in the summer. Tenerife, La Palma, La Gomera, El Hierro and Gran Canaria, which are the islands with the largest forest area, are already preparing.
The territorial director of Aemet, David Suárez, points out that long-term trends indicate that the Canary Islands "are becoming aridified", with an average of 6% of the surface area changing from a temperate climate to an arid and dry climate per year. “The temperatures are higher, the haze persists, it rains less and the sea water is warmer (up to 1.6 degrees warmer). It has been a year of many anomalies,” says Suárez, who highlights that this winter there was Saharan wind in the archipelago 85% of the days.
Suárez recognizes that this year's anomalies may be related to the El Niño phenomenon that introduces natural climate variability, although long-term trends indicate that the Canary Islands will have a warmer climate next year. “In the long term, the increase in temperatures has to do with the increase in gases due to the greenhouse effect and climate change and within smaller scales, patterns such as El Niño influence,” he indicates.
