Uninhabitable Belpaese – Episode 2

The question of what the effects of climate change will be on our country, and what Italy will look like in 2100, is addressed by the report ‘Risk analysis. Climate change in Italy’, published by the CMCC in 2020.

The essential premise of the document is the so-called Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), that is, climate scenarios expressed in terms of greenhouse gas concentrations, which climatologists use as a basis for predicting climate change. Two different RCP scenarios were used in the report:

RCP 4.5 The scenario considered the most realistic. Greenhouse gas emissions will peak around 2040 and then begin to decline, leading to an increase in global average temperatures of about 2°C.

RCP 8.5 The most dramatic scenario: emissions continuing to grow at the current rate, which by 2100 will lead to an increase in global average temperatures of about 5-6°C.

Starting from these RCP scenarios, the report used climate models to predict the climate of Italy in 2100.
The unambiguous result is a hotter Italy: an increase in average temperatures of about 3.2°C for RCP4.5 and about 6.3°C for RCP8.5.

The average temperatures expected for Italy are therefore higher than the global ones. The reason is that the Mediterranean basin, of which Italy is part, is considered one of the ‘hotspots’ of climate change, with warming that exceeds the global average increase by 20%.

Let us move on to another decisive parameter for future scenarios: precipitation. The level of annual precipitation should not change greatly, but this is the result of a ‘compensation’ effect, that is, the fact that in some areas of the country precipitation will increase and in others it will decrease.
Indeed, the centre-south will see a sharp decrease in rainfall, with frequent periods of drought and water shortages, particularly during the summer. By contrast, the northern regions, and the Alpine areas in particular, will see an increase in precipitation.

Instability: this is the other keyword for Italy’s climate in the coming decades. Extreme weather events will in fact increase: torrential rain, out-of-season frosts, tropical nights (during which the temperature will not fall below 20°C), periods of drought.

Did you miss the first part of the article? Click here