• Spring precipitation also rains down comments questioning global warming.
  • Except that this is a confusion between weather and climate, explain paleoclimatologist Jean Jouzel and Simon Mittelberger, climatologist at Météo-France.
  • "Global warming trends are long-term trends," Mittelberger said.

Since the end of April, rainfall has also rained viral comments on social networks questioning global warming. "It's raining everywhere all day even in the South... Despite a very rainy month of March + April the media dare to talk about drought and warming every day #escrocs, "indignant a user on Twitter, accompanying his post of weather maps announcing rains.

Others use a rainy weather map and draw a parallel with the twenty or so departments put on drought alert. And denounce the fact that the France would have "fallen on the head" as during Covid. At the beginning of May, it is the cool temperatures "below the seasonal averages" that would defeat so-called forecasts of "heat waves not seen for decades in May". The accumulation of these posts aims to demonstrate the lack of reality of global warming.

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Except that this is a confusion between weather and climate. Asked about these contents, Jean Jouzel, paleoclimatologist and former vice-president of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said he had no problem saying that there was rainfall 30% above average in March or that temperatures may have been lower than seasonal averages in May.

"My fear is that if we have a completely normal summer, which is quite possible, people will say: you see global warming is not true," he said. No, global warming is the average temperature that is increasing, and that is very well documented, "with the first part of the IPCC assessment report, published in 2021. This is the latest update of scientific knowledge on climate change, which notably points out that global surface temperature "has risen faster since 1970 than in any other 50-year period in the last 2,000 years".



In France, the average temperature has risen by 1.7 degrees, including since the 1960s, he said, adding that this means increasingly mild winters, earlier, later, bigger heat waves, broken heat records, but there can still be harsh winters. And adds that not every summer will be like the one in 2022. "Last summer was exceptional," he explains. We may not find a summer of this type before 2030. They are becoming more and more frequent, but it is not every year. »

Trends over long periods of time

"What the climatologist will look at is that 2022 was the hottest year in France in one hundred and fifty years and not just that, it broke the record of the year 2020 by nearly 1.5 degrees, that's the finding," he says. Not the fact that there was a month in a place that was colder than average, that's completely normal. »

This is also explained by Simon Mittelberger, climatologist at Météo-France. "We have a confusion between the climate side and the meteorology side [in these posts], that is to say that trends in global warming are trends over long periods: on average, we are moving towards warmer and hotter Mays, but without making it impossible to have punctually colder Mays, rainier. »

May, a month of transition

Regarding precipitation in May, a surplus of nearly 20% was noted [as of May 15, 2023], details the climatologist of Météo-France. This month contrasts with May 2022, which had been extremely dry, with a rainfall deficit of nearly 65%. On the contrary, in 2021, a surplus of almost 40% was recorded. What can we conclude? "In general, May is a month of transition between the winter and summer seasons, so we can have both months that can be very dry in some years, but also very wet months," he adds.

This observation is also valid for temperatures. "In 2022, we had an exceptionally warm May, the hottest ever recorded in the France," says Simon Mittelberger. If we go back to 2021, May had been significantly colder than normal with -1.6 degrees difference. We can find months of May above and below normal. »

Groundwater in the red despite the rains

Finally, despite the spring rains in France, 68% of groundwater remains at moderately low to very low levels, including 20% at very low levels, according to the hydrogeological bulletin of the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (BRGM), published on 17 May.

💧 State of groundwater aquifers on May 1, 2023

What to remember?
1️⃣The rains of March and April have recharged the reactive to little inertial aquifers of the watered
2️areas ⃣The situation is improving considerably on the Armorican Massif, the Channel coast and the Grand-Est pic.twitter.com/7Lo3PAr7Av

— BRGM (@BRGM_fr) May 17, 2023

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In March and April, the cumulative amount of precipitation was surplus over a large part of the territory. Some aquifers have been able to recharge, but after the winter drought, the situation remains heterogeneous and worrying, particularly on the Rhône corridor and around the Mediterranean.

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