Report reveals how global warming has transformed Rome’s climate since 1975.
Rome is the Italian city that has been most affected by climate change over the past 50 years, according to a new report produced by weather forecast site iLMeteo.it for the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
The study into the effects of global warming, published on Friday, was based on extensive meteorological data amassed from 1 January 1975 to 31 December 2024.
The average annual temperature in Rome in the 1970s was 14.6 degrees however since the 2000s the average has stood at 16.9 degrees, an increase of almost two and a half degrees.
The rise in temperature has also coincided with a drastic reduction in Rome’s “ponentino” westerly wind, which once offset the warm summer evenings, a phenomenon that has affected many cities in central Italy.
What has driven these changes? “The increase in sea temperature”, explains Lorenzo Tedici, meteorologist responsible for media at iLMeteo.it.
“In summer, the surface temperature of the sea water surrounding our peninsula approaches, and sometimes exceeds, 30 degrees” – Tedici said – “Until a few years ago, the sea played a role in mitigating temperatures, now it has become an amplifier”.
Among the consequences is the exponential increase in humid, tropical nights.
“Fifty years ago, there were about 10 tropical nights a year in Rome, in 2024 they reached 79 thanks to the expansion of the African anticyclone that took the place of the cooler one from the Azores”, underlines Mattia Gussoni, meteorologist and climatologist at iLMeteo.it.
Another significant fact that emerges from the report concerns heavy rainfall. If the amount of rain that falls in Italy during the year is taken into consideration, there are no major variations compared to the 20th century, except in years of severe drought such as 2022 in the north-western regions.
“The big difference is the intensity of the rainfall, concentrated in a few days, if not a few hours, therefore much more devastating with the drama of flash floods in limited and unpredictable areas” – Tedici explains – “especially in the northern regions where the heat trapped in the Po Valley, in contact with cooler air masses, triggers cloudbursts and hailstorms originating from the so-called supercell storms”.
“The intensity of the rainfall is also a theme linked to global warming, which increases the evaporation of water from the seas”, Tedici added.
The iLMeteo.it report for the Corriere della Sera, now in its second edition, coincides with an intense heatwave sweeping across Italy this weekend.
Photo credit: Massimo Todaro / Shutterstock.com.
